July 18, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Web hosting, domain registrar and advertising solutions provider Dada (dada.dada.net) announced on Friday it has acquired the Amen Group from web hosting provider Claranet (clara.net) for Euro 17.5 million in cash, which it paid in its entirely on closing the deal.
Founded in 1999, Amen provides domain and hosting services in France, Spain and Portugal, and is also present in the UK, Dutch and Italian markets.
The company has over 140,000 business customers, 300,000 hosted domains and more than 3,000 dedicated servers, offering a range of Internet solutions to businesses and professionals including domain name registration, hosting, web design, web marketing, e-commerce and brand protection.
The deal strengthens DadaPro Division's strategy in consolidating its leadership in the European market, while helping to place Dada Group among the leading European companies in the sector. The company has 400 thousand business clients and more than 1.2 million domains, of which 70 percent outside of Italy.
The acquisition was made through Register.it , a Dada subsidiary and head of the DadaPro Division, and partly financed using Dada Group liquidity and partly through bank funding.
It involves 100 percent of the share capital of all the companies in the Amen Group, which includes Agences des Medias Numeriques in France, Agencia de Media Numerica Espana in Spain, Amenworld Services Internet Sociedade Unipessoal in Portugal, Amen Limited in the United Kingdom, Amen Nederland in The Netherlandsand Amen Italia in Italy.
In the past fiscal year from June 2007 to June 2008, Amen reported consolidated revenues of Euro 11.1 million and an Ebitda of Euro 1.8 million. For the current fiscal year, the company forecasts revenues of over Euro 12 million and an Ebitda between Euro 2.5 million and 3 million.
As of June 30, 2008 the net cash position of the Company was over Euro 400,000.
"The acquisition of Amen further strengthens the DadaPro Division and will drive the Group's international expansion in the digital services market," says Paolo Barberis, chairman and founder of Dada. "Thanks to Amen, we will further expand our business client base offering out integrated solutions from domain to click, driving growth of the new Dada Group advertising platform."
IT security solutions provider Comodo signed a multi-year deal in February enabling Amen in France to offer Comodo's line of public key infrastructure based SSL certificates.
