Dots was a women’s and plus size fashions and accessories company that operated on the Dots.com domain name. In January of this year, Bloomberg reported that the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Hilco Streambank, an advertiser on DomainInvesting.com, was responsible for the sale of the Dots.com domain name and intellectual property associated with the Dots brand.
The auction for the Dots related intellectual property was conducted and concluded last week. According to Jack Hazan, Executive Vice President at Hilco Streambank, the Dots.com domain name was sold separately to an individual investor for $335,000. The rest of the package sold to a newly formed entity called New Dots LLC for $326,000. I understand that bidding was quite active.
Here’s what Hazan was able to share about the auction:
“It was fascinating that the domain actually sold for more than the rest of the IP, which included established trademarks and a strong customer database. The auction was very active with many rounds of bidding. Bids started at 100,000 for the domain alone and went up in 10,000 increments. Another domain bidder dropped out at 260,000 and the winner was bid up further by the package bidders. The package winner outbid our stalking horse bidder – Rainbow Shops. The sale is scheduled to be approved by the bankruptcy court next week.”
I look forward to seeing how Dots.com will be used by the buyer.
For a chapter 11 filing, I don’t understand why the trustee decided to sell the domain sincle creditors still need to be paid back a percentage of what they are owed, UNLESS the sale amount and other assets are sufficient enough to satisfy the creditors.. At any rate, it’s good news for the creditors as well as the dot com.