Rightside Sells Enom to Tucows

I just received some breaking news from Enom that I want to share with you. According to the email I received, Tucows has acquired Enom from Rightside. Both Tucows (TCX on NASDAQ) and Rightside (NAME on NASDAQ) are publicly traded companies. A press release published by Tucows  reports that “Tucows will pay $83.5 million and the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings.” As noted in the press release, this deal will make the combined company the second largest domain registrar in the world behind GoDaddy.

I have not yet had time to think about the implications of this (or rationale for this deal). I am curious about why Rightside decided to sell Enom and what will happen with Rightside’s other domain registrar, Name.com, which it acquired in 2013 when Rightside was part of Demand Media. I am curious what will come of the relationship with NameJet, both on the buy and sell side since Tucows has a relationship with GoDaddy on its expiring inventory. I am also curious about how the Enom customer support and account management will change under new ownership.  These things will become more clear in the coming days.

Here is the announcement I received this morning:

A new chapter for eNom

For the past 20 years, eNom has enabled businesses and consumers to define and establish their online presence. As one of the early wholesale registrars, we provide the technological infrastructure to support a network of approximately 28,000 active resellers and 14 million domains under management.

Today, a new chapter begins. We’ve entered into an agreement for Tucows Inc. to acquire eNom from Rightside. For years, eNom and OpenSRS have been the two leading registrars primarily focused on the needs of resellers. We feel that this acquisition will keep resellers where they will be well understood, well valued and well served and will create tremendous value through efficiency and scale.

For our valued customers and resellers, rest assured that Tucows will be here for you just like we have been for the last two decades. Also be assured that you will not see any immediate changes. You will continue to operate on the eNom platform through the eNom API and have access to all eNom TLDs, products, account management and support. It will be business as usual for the foreseeable future.

We thank you for your partnership and we are confident that this next chapter will be a successful one for the eNom brand as well as for eNom customers and resellers.

For more information about this acquisition, please read the OpenSRS blog post and the Tucows’ press release.