Record £150,000 UK Domain Name Purchase By ASAP Ventures – parent to Carrentals.co.uk

14 November 2007 – ASAP Ventures, parent to leading car hire comparator Carrentals.co.uk, has purchased Recycle.co.uk for £150,000 - the highest amount ever paid for a .co.uk internet domain name.

The investment is the latest in a series of purchases for the group, which has also recently bought Fly.co.uk for £87,500, broadening its portfolio in the online market into areas as diverse as travel, shopping promotions, dating and recycling.

Commenting on the Recycle.co.uk acquisition Gareth Robinson, marketing director of ASAP Ventures, said: “The purchase of Recycle.co.uk underlines our commitment to growing the business and expanding into new markets. The success we have had with Carrentals.co.uk has been phenomenal, and we have the skills and technology to reflect this elsewhere.

“The investment in Recycle.co.uk may be the highest yet, but it is well founded. The online market is changing rapidly and domain names are key. In the US the market has already exploded, and while the UK operates under different regulations, the potential is vast.“

The £150,000 investment in Recycle.co.uk is the highest published figure paid for a .co.uk Internet domain name, breaking the last recorded value by £40,000, which was set by J Sainsbury plc when it purchased taste.co.uk for £110,000 in 1997

ASAP Ventures’ travel operations include Carrentals.co.uk; travel comparison site asap.co.uk; and accommodation listings directory Self-Catering-Breaks.com, while the group launched Carrentals.de in Germany last month and plans to launch elsewhere in Europe and Australia over the next six months.

Expansion into non-travel services has been strengthened with the purchase of Recycle.co.uk, while additional brands include Promos.co.uk, Easyfindadate.com and wannabehere.com. The Group is set to develop its business activities further over the coming 12 months with a strengthened programme of development and acquisition.

Since launching Carrentals.co.uk in 2003, the ASAP Ventures group has grown to a sales revenue of over £8m in the last financial year, with this year on target to hit £12m. 2008/09 is targeted at £20million.

Nora Nanayakkara, UK operations director, Sedo, the company behind the auction of Recycle.co.uk, added: “We are seeing a growing interest in the purchase of co.uk Internet domain names in the secondary market. Over six million co.uk Internet domain names are already registered and there is a shortage of available quality names. This is driving the sale of high value generic names, such as recycle.co.uk.”

Figures from Sedo show that in the past year the total volume of co.uk Internet domain name sales in the secondary market has grown by 30 per cent to over £1.5 million, with Sedo accounting for approximately 84 per cent of co.uk transactions in 2006 (source – DNJournal).
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