As the hosting and domain name space becomes mature there will inevitably be an uptick in mergers and acquisitions. In recent years we’ve seen GoDaddy acquire multiple companies to strengthen its hold on the European market, while UK based Centralnic has more recently been acquiring companies across the globe.
Personally I predicted that this uptick in M & A activity isn’t going to slowdown anytime soon. How that will change the market landscape is really hard to predict. While some companies will literally swallow up their acquisitions, others would tend to let the individual brands, and their particular strengths, go about their business while leveraging the economies of scale.
Today came the announcement that Register Group is being merged with Team Blue. You’d be forgiven if neither of those company names was familiar to you, but you probably would have heard of their various brands.
Register Group used to be known as Dada and was previously quoted on the Italian stock exchange. They own a number of hosting providers across Europe including Register 365, LetsHost and Hosting Ireland in Ireland.
Team Blue is a relative new entity in the European market which was formed earlier this year through the merger of Belgian provider Combell with TransIP back in June. The new combined entity will have some fairly impressive figures according to today’s announcement:
- €275 million revenue
- 2 million plus customers
- 1000+ staff in Europe
HG Capital, which has been backing both companies prior to this merger, has committed to increasing its investment:
In team.blue, Hg is supporting the creation of a true European champion in digital services for professionals. The entrepreneurs behind team.blue have created a highly innovative business, with exceptional customer feedback and the ability to scale rapidly across geographies. We look forward to continuing our partnership.
Nick Jordan and Joris Van Gool, Hg
As the tempo of M and A activity increases the number of potential acquisition targets will keep decreasing.
