Centralnic has announced that it is acquiring Hexonet, which also owns 1API.
The deal, which was announced today, will see Centralnic pay up to €10 million to acquire the German and Canadian based company.
As a company focussed on domains there is of course a lot of recurring revenue:
Like CentralNic, Hexonet has a high level of recurring revenues and excellent customer retention. In 2018, Hexonet’s revenues were c.€16.5 million (c.$19.4m USD), representing a CAGR of 8% on a USD basis for the two preceding years, with an EBITDA of c.€0.8m (c.$0.9m USD). The payment of the full consideration amount is subject to Hexonet being delivered by the seller with over €0.3m (c.$0.4m) of ongoing cost reductions compared to the 2018 cost base, which is materially completed, and the absence of warranty claims.
Hexonet has offices in both Germany and Canada and is focussed on the wholesale reseller domain business.
It sounds like several of the key staff will be staying on post-acquisition and that the group intends to leverage the Vancouver offices to provide cover to the US west coast. They’ll also be incorporating staff from Hexonet to fill existing vacancies:
Further, CentralNic is filling staff vacancies budgeted at €0.3m (c.$0.4m) with staff from Hexonet. Integration is facilitated by the close physical proximity of the German operations of CentralNic and Hexonet.
Centralnic has been buying up domain businesses left right and centre over the last couple of years and has become a force to be reckoned with.
UPDATE: Robbie Birkner, Hexonet co-founder and CSO has written about the sale in a very personal and emotional blog post.
