This is my first article for B10WH after the website has been completely redesigned. I feel a little bit sentimental when it comes to this website because I’ve created under name Best 10 Web Hosting in 2003. But this was only an introduction. My first post here is about a success story I’ve recently wrote in my Daw Web Hosting Blog. the Daw’s publication is titled “Unlimited” Mistakes In Web Hosting“. It is about 1&1, a web hosting company, which originally comes from Germany, that launched its U.S. operations in 2003.
In the beginning of February Cheval Capital, a small investment bank that specializes in mergers and acquisitions in web hosting industry published its valuation of of Public Hosting Companies. Take a look at Cheval Capital’s estimate of the relative valuations of some of the major hosting companies as of February 1, 2009.
Ranked number one per Revenue ($ millions) and Value/Revenue* is United Internet with $2,081 billion and 1.3 x value/revs, followed by Savvis with $873 million and 1.1 x value/revs.
Rackspace is third with $553 million, and 1.3 x value/revs. Dada is fourth with $229 million and 0.8 x value/revs.
Navisite ($159 million and 0.9 x value/revs), Web.Com ($122 million and 0.6 x value/revs), Peer 1 ($94 million and 1.2 x value/revs), (Group iWeb ($15 million and 2.0 x value/revs) are ranked between 5th and 8th place.
How Te Calculation Were Made?
Cheval Capital typically look at two enterprise value formulas for calculating the Enterprise Value and make adjustments from there if necessary.
Enterprise Value = (Fully Diluted Shares * Current Stock Price) plus Debt (long and short term, including capital leases) less any option exercise proceeds for unexercised, in-the-money, options included in Fully Diluted Shares.
Enterprise Value = (Fully Diluted Shares * Current Stock Price) less Current Assets plus Total Liabilities less any option exercise proceeds for unexercised, in-the-money, options included in Fully Diluted Shares.
The investment bankers say that the reason why they look at two formulas is because some companies have unusual balance sheet items (e.g. large cash balances, that can distort valuation etc.).
Cheval Capital Inc, uses a multiple of revenue to compare web hosting companies because they have very different capital and operating structures and compete in different niches of the web hosting industry. The investment bank takes all data from public financial statements for the quarter ended September 30, 2008.
