Netregistry’s parent snaps up Web hosting company

Netregistry’s parent company, Online Growth Solutions (OGS), has acquired MD Web Hosting for an undisclosed price and is hungry for more acquisitions.

The new hosting company is an accredited auDA Registrar and will join PlanetDomain, Netregistry, NETT Magazine and Hostess as part of the OGS family. The group began discussions with MD eight months ago but a planned transaction early in the year was held up due to the global financial crisis.

With the addition of MD’s portfolio, OGS claims that it now has more than 23 per cent of .AU names under its belt. According to OGS CEO, Larry Bloch, this new development also made the group the top player in Australia’s domain names market, ahead of main competitor, ASX-listed Melbourne IT (ASX: MLB).

OGS will leverage additional capabilities to MD partners, including white label technology which enables resellers to provide a template to sell domain hosting and other services to customers.

Bloch said a more clearly defined partners program for MD resellers was in the works.

Existing MD clients will experience minimal impact, but to facilitate direct support, OGS plans to round up MD’s outsourced IT and customer support service and bring them back to Australia. The services will be provided in-house from the group’s Sydney-based call centre and IT operations centre.

With the new Web hosting company’s large portfolio of customers, OGS expects this purchase to add about eight per cent of revenue to the group. Bloch has revealed that there is still a significant amount of acquisition funding remaining and the company is planning for a shopping spree.

"We are actively seeking acquisitions, preferably for companies with more than $1.5 million yearly revenue and up to entities in the $10-15 million revenue bracket," he said. "This will involve not only companies in our immediate space of domain and hosting, but also software-as-a-service (SaaS) operations that have applications targeted at business audience.

"We now have around 300,000 Australian business customers and we are looking to leverage these relationships by selling SaaS-based applications to customers from our platform."

All of MD Web Hosting’s current staff will be retained and will still receive the same entitlements.

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