I noticed a Whois change this morning involving the valuable Hay.com domain name, which had been owned by Digimedia. Hay.com is now registered to an entity in Denmark. Based on some Google searching, it looks like the Hay.com domain name was acquired by an entity affiliated with a business called HAY, which operates on the HAY.dk domain name.
When I visited Hay.com after observing the Whois change, I was taken to a NetNames default landing page. A Whois search on Hay.com shows the registrant email address is @bestseller.com. Best Seller appears to be a clothier or clothing retailer based in Denmark. A subsequent Google search for “best seller” and “hay” led me to a website for a company called Nine United. On its company page, Nine United mentions both the BESTSELLER and HAY brands. This leads me to believe the buyer was related to the HAY brand.
Assuming this information is accurate, my guess is the company that acquired Hay.com will eventually move its HAY.dk website to HAY.com. It seems that HAY has a global presence, so it makes sense that it would upgrade to .com instead of using a ccTLD that might be unrecognized in Asian, American, and African markets the company seems to serve.
I have no idea what the cost of Hay.com was, and I know that Digimedia has a policy of not sharing details about its deals or sales. My guess is that this was a mid to high six figure deal, although it would not be shocking if the company was able to get a seven figure price tag for the domain name.
Digimedia seems to be on quite a roll this year. The company sold Draft.com for high six figures earlier this month and the company also recently sold Tile.com.
DigiMedia is just coming into it’s own, they have been patient, and I would assume after years of getting lowballed, it’s time for these parties to start paying up.
Hay is in 50 countries with over 400 employees and revenues around 150 million per year. If Digimedia got close to one million for Box.com then I’m sure they got close to a million for Hay.com from this company.
The owner of Bestseller is – although he is a Dane – the second-largest owner of land in Scotland after the Queen of the United Kingdom. I think he can spare a dime.
Needless to say, he also owns bestseller.com.