VeriSign completes Network Solutions unit sale

November 26, 2003 —

VeriSign Inc. said Tuesday that it has completed the sale of its domain name registrar business to Pivotal Private Equity, freeing it up to focus on its infrastructure services.

The Mountain View, California, company announced that it was selling off its Network Solutions unit to Pivotal for approximately US$100 million last October, although it has retained a 15 percent equity stake. The company said that it is focusing on its registry business, which provides the backbone for the .com and .net domain names.

Pivotal Private Equity, a unit of Phoenix, Arizona, investment and development firm Pivotal Group Inc., said that it plans to expand Network Solutions' existing registrar services and distribution channels. The business currently provides domain registration, Web site management tools and e-mail services.

It was unclear whether customers would see a difference in prices or customer support offered by Network Solutions now that the hand-over is complete.

Network Solutions began managing the .com registry in 1988 and claims to have registered over 25 million domain names since then. But despite being a lucrative business for VeriSign, the unit has also run the company into some trouble with regulators and customers who claimed that the company had too tight a hold on the domain name system.

In September, for example, VeriSign settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that a marketing campaign tricked customers into transferring domain names to Network Solutions.

IDG News Service