It looks like George Kirikos has uncovered the sale (well, sales) of the First.com domain name. He shared the information he found in a Twitter tweet early this afternoon:
https://t.co/GvwwOQ1XgK was bought for $200,000, and just sold for $200,000 (net proceeds excl broker fees). See: https://t.co/CdNzsFELta pic.twitter.com/xlGHkIdQ2L
— George Kirikos (@GeorgeKirikos) August 19, 2017
The source of George’s information is a SEC filing from Sitestar Corporation, the company that bought and sold First.com. The information was shared in a press release announcing the company’s Q2 2017 results. Here’s an excerpt from the SEC filing:
“Additionally, the subsidiary closed on the sale of First.com, a domain name that has been actively marketed since the first quarter of 2016. The domain name had a cost basis of $200,000 and was sold for net proceeds of $200,000 including broker and commission fees paid.”
It seems that this deal will not be published in DNJournal or NameBio because the most recent exact sale price was not shared. We could probably make a good estimate based on a 15% commission rate, but unless the broker or brokerage shares the actual price, it will probably remain unpublished. My guess is the deal was somewhere in the ballpark of $235,000, which seems like a very reasonable price for a name of this caliber.
Assuming I am reading the report correctly, it looks like the company paid $200,000 to buy First.com back in 2006. If that is correct, this purchase would be tied for 29th largest publicly reported domain name sale of 2006 (tied with Flowers.mobi, Nasty.com, and Farm.com).
Based on my email history, it looks like the domain name was being brokered by Mark Daniel and/or Domain Holdings. I am not sure if Mark or Domain Holdings was the broker of record, but I see the domain name mentioned in several newsletters.
Whois records show the current owner of First.com is based in China. When I visited First.com, I see a website in Chinese with the 66.cn logo on the top left.
Thanks for sharing!
Nice sale but buyer got a good deal here IMO especially if it’s enduser.
Buyer got a big bargain of the first order.
200k is so cheap for that domain
Don’t like this name as it’s miserably fail the radio test.
1st
first
Would not spend 20K for it.
That is completely incorrect in this case. Virtually no one would ever construe it that way if they were told to go to “first.com.”
Ironically, you also have it in reverse: 1st.com is what fails the radio test.
I remembered Jamie Zoch mentioning this sale back in May.
http://dotweekly.com/domain-movers-first-com-cqc-com/
The buyer of FIRST.com is the company behind the website 66.cn, which is (or at least was in 2013) one of Sedo partners.
Jiang Xiangpu, mentioned in the Whois, is the CEO of 66.cn.
It would be interesting to know if they purchased it for themselves or on behalf of a client.
I’d have asked (and got) much more than 200k. 🙂
WARNING, NEW OCCASIONAL RANDOM EMD ALERT:
DrunkenStumblebum.com
is available for anyone to reg.
great name and cool way to show the tweet after 10 retweets 🙂 i was interested to know and retweeted it , nice strategy George.
Thanks, but it was just for yuks.
WARNING, here is a random reminder that Estibot = Evil:
https://www.domaininvesting.com/mike-mann-estibot-dramatically-deflates-the-value-of-a-domain/
Sold too cheap IMO. Should of sold for $300k or more.