Addressing his employees this week, Parsons said, “With a war and escalating hostilities throughout the Middle East, skyrocketing oil prices and technology stocks once again taking a beating on Wall Street — now just isn’t the right time for us.”
The ICANN-accredited registrar rose to public prominence in 2005, when it ran its risqué Super Bowl ad. The TV spot, which was cancelled after the single airing, shows a scantily clad model experiencing a wardrobe malfunction while she testifies before a fake Broadcast Censorship Committee.
Go Daddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar and the largest hosting provider measured by hostnames. Go Daddy’s domain name portfolio includes 14.6 million registered domain names — more than twice the size of Network Solutions, its closest competitor.
The company generated revenues of $139 million in 2005 but lost $13.8 million overall, according to Go Daddy’s SEC filing. The company has not reached profitability even though it has a positive cash flow and has produced significant operating cash flow during each filing period.
“We are fortunate to control our own destiny,” Parsons said. “Moving forward, we plan to continue to focus our efforts on growing our business and taking care of our customers, as we have always done. The withdrawal of our registration statement does not change the overall fundamentals of Go Daddy’s business, which remain quite strong.”
On his personal blog, Parsons noted that the SEC had given Go Daddy the green light for its IPO, which he likened to, “A person being told his car is in perfect condition just before it’s about to be driven into a wall.”
Parsons added, “I’ll Stay ‘Master of My Own Domain’ … for now. So The Go Daddy Group Inc. goes back to being a private company. I don’t need to drive this company into a wall to make a quick buck. Controlling our own destiny is what has made this company great from the start.”
Go Daddy hired Lehman Brothers to manage its IPO filing.
