LONDON, UK: CentralNic Group has entered into agreements to acquire Fireball Search GmbH as well as the .ruhr Top-Level Domain (TLD) for a total aggregate consideration of EUR 0.6m in cash.
The acquisitions are expected to complete immediately and on or around 31 May 2022 respectively and will be financed from available cash resources.
Founded in 1996, Fireball was once the leading search engine in Germany, and the name retains high consumer awareness, despite being acquired by and merged into Lycos Europe in the early 2000s.
In 2016, Fireball was re-established as an independent company, with a completely overhauled version of the service, including a strong focus on privacy, a core value of CentralNic. Search results are powered by Bing.
Fireball opens up new traffic sources for CentralNic to monetise through its proprietary Online Marketing tools, and it adds alternative monetisation channels for CentralNic to generate revenues from internet traffic.
.ruhr is the domain address for the urban agglomeration centred around the river Ruhr in Germany, consisting of c.50 cities, including Dortmund and Essen, with roughly 5 million inhabitants.
There are currently c.10k domain names registered using the .ruhr Top-Level Domain. .ruhr will be migrated from its existing service providers and will be fully managed by CentralNic’s internal resources, joining another German regional TLD, .saarland.
Combined historical revenue and EBITDA for both acquisitions are c.EUR 0.2m and c.EUR 0.1m respectively. The acquisitions are expected to be immediately earnings accretive.
Ben Crawford, CEO of CentralNic, said “We are encouraged by the organic growth that CentralNic is continuing to deliver so far in 2022, and, in particular, the strong performance of our online marketing division. Our privacy-safe solutions are gaining traction, while competing solutions that collect private user data, and so require GDPR or IDFA consent, lose market share.
Whilst it is still very early in our financial year, we are extremely encouraged by the continuation of the growth that we saw in 2021 and look forward to giving a further update on trading at the time of our 2021 results release on 28 February 2022.”
“Regarding our most recent acquisitions, owning and operating Top-Level Domain (“TLD”) registries has proven to be a very successful vertical integration strategy for our company, which already has all the resources required, including being the market leader in the global distribution of new TLDs. At the same time, the acquisition of Fireball increases the portfolio of privacy-focused solutions for our rapidly expanding Online Marketing customer base.”
“Finally we are committed to engage with our increasing retail following ever more frequently, hopefully also in person when the global health situation permits.”
CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) is a London-based AIM-listed company which drives the growth of the global digital economy by providing businesses around the world with tools to build their online presence and to win customers and earn revenues online.
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