XL Airways was a low cost airline that declared bankruptcy and was set to have its assets liquidated. One of the assets the airline owned and used is the valuable two letter XL.com domain name. I recall hearing about the bankruptcy filing, but I did not pay close attention to it, nor did I follow along to see what would happen to the domain name. Apparently, the auction for XL.com was held earlier today in France.
A NamePros thread this morning caught my attention: “XL.COM SOLD FOR 600,000€.” The thread was started by NamePros member Seb@stien. I reached out to Sebastian to see if he could provide more information and a source for this news, and he shared a couple of files that showed where the auction was scheduled to be held in Paris this morning. I looked up the auction house in Google, and I found what appears to be the landing page for the XL.com auction.
I do not speak French, but I saw an email address on the auction landing page, and I sent an email asking, “Did the XL.com domain name sell at auction? Can you please share the sale price?” Shortly after sending the auction, I received a reply confirming that the domain name sold for 600 000€ (approximately $660,951 USD at today’s exchange rate). From what I can tell, it looks like there is a selling fee of 14.4%. Assuming that is added to the €600,000 price, the final price of XL.com would appear to be €686,400. At today’s exchange rate, the total sale price is approximately $756,334 USD.
If Ron Jackson is able to independently confirm this sale, as it will likely be one of the top domain name sales of 2020.
Considering DXL.com was sold for $1.15 million in 2018, the reported price of XL.com seems exceptional. Assuming this is accurate and nothing is lost in translation, this is a heck of a deal for the buyer once it closes.
Oh wow. I think the buyer got a really good deal. Flew under the radar for me!
I guess that explains the higher than average inquiries for our XL3.com in the last few weeks ?
The sale is confirmed by a trusted french newspaper. The xl.com sale was in a lot of domains, logos and trademarks. All of them were owned by former company xl airways. Among the domains: xl.com, xlairways.com, xlfly.com, xlvoyages.com & many more.
The buyer is still unknown.
I don’t think it was under market value. Wholesale price at wholesale venue. Market seems to be highish 6 figs for LL.com or around $1 million for names with clear secondary meaning like rx.com and tm.com
DXL.com was a huge outlier.
The price paid (€686,400) included not only the domain XL.com, but also the XL brands, in its various forms, and other domains owned by the company.
https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/la-marque-xl-airways-bradee-aux-encheres-1360674
So the domain sale price is only a portion of that.
Then it was a steal!
$700,000 for a two letter is about average.