Breaking: eName purchases 4.cn
eName now listed as sole shareholder of GoldenName entity.
Consolidation in the Chinese domain name market has begun.
Based on a Chinese corporation document and discussions with industry sources, Reglike has confirmed that eName now owns domain marketplace 4.cn.
Sources tell Reglike that DN.com and other properties under the GoldenName umbrella are included in the deal, although I haven’t been able to confirm this from official documents.
A source states the deal can be considered more of a merger than an buyout.
For its part, DN.com firm representatives have denied an buyout. Following DN.com went down the prior week due to an ownership transfer, a firm representative posted a carefully worded explanation on NamePros, stating:
Please understand that taking down www.DN.com temporarily was a prerequisite move if we wanted to modify the entity. We did this to coordinate with the lawful procedures.
For you to understand it better, we’d like to explain the exact procedures that we need to go through. We hope everyone can take an objective perspective over this. The official term is called “备案（bei an）”. “备案（bei an)” is to register the website and the firm with the government’s network authority, in which procedure we note to the government regarding what the website’s business is and which firm the website belongs to. It is since of our development plan, that we are changing the entity from “Hangzhou Midaizi Network Co., Ltd.”(also the mother firm of 4.cn) to “Hangzhou YunBiao Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd.” Both firms belong to John Xu, 4.cn owner.
Although John Xu is still named on a Chinese corporation document for “Hangzhou Midaizi Internet Limited”, a Chinese firm search shows that eName is the only shareholder. Records show that the ownership of the entity changed on March 3.
A DN.com firm representative again denied the firm was purchased in a comment on Reglike. I reached out to DN.com client support this morning for a comment regarding the firm search showing eName as the owner of Hangzhou Midai.
It’s possible that there are technicalities around the ownership, which is perhaps why DN.com was moved to a different entity than the one that owns 4.cn, but sources believe the transaction includes DN.com and other affiliated sites.
This is a developing story, and I ought to have more insight later today.
