Meet the latest publicly-traded company from the Seattle area.
Kirkland-based Rightside Group, a domain name service, today completed a spin off from Demand Media Inc. Shares started trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “NAME,” with the stock now at $15.48.
“Today’s milestone is a tribute to our team’s vision, ingenuity and commitment to making Rightside a leader in advancing the way businesses and consumers define and present themselves online,” said Taryn Naidu, CEO of Rightside. “Success will come from driving new TLDs through each aspect of our business — with our Registrar, Registry and Aftermarket businesses each doing their part to innovate and deliver for our customers.”
As part of the spin off, Demand Media shareholders will receive one share of Rightside for every five shares of Demand Media they own.
Demand Media will continue as a public company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DMD. It now has a market value of $185 million.
Rightside says it is the most widely used domain name reseller platform, with more than 15 million names under management. Its brands include eNom, Name.com and NameJet.
Interestingly, Seattle is becoming a bit of a hub when it comes to domain names, with heavily-funded Donuts based in Bellevue and Amazon.com recently jumping into the registration business. Donuts is led by Paul Stahura, who sold eNom to Demand Media in 2006. GoDaddy also established an engineering center in Kirkland last year.
