This morning I noticed several Cooking domain names on the move at corporate domain name provider CSC and the ultra premium domain name Cooking.com has changed ownership from Gordon Brothers Group to Hoffman Media, LLC.
This was not the only premium cooking domain name on the move, it was also Cooking.net and Cooking.org. Several other cooking related domains like Cook.org, Cook.net, eCooking.com, Kitchenware.com and potentially a few more appear to have went with the package deal to Hoffman Media.
Although Gordon Brothers was in whois records prior, the Cooking.com, .net and .org domain names were all owned by Target Brands Inc., as were the others mentioned above.
Target closed it Chefs Catalog quietly in early 2016, after acquiring Cooking.com and Chefs Catalog in 2013 and these domain names were valuable assets after the closing and I’m sure Target cashed out with seven figures just from the domains.
Target also owned the US and Canada trademarks for Cooking.com, which also show Gordon Brothers, so these TM’s were also likely included in the sale.
A bit about Hoffman from its website: “Hoffman Media, LLC (HM) is a privately held, leading special-interest publisher based in Birmingham, Ala. The company specializes in publications targeted to the women’s market and the large base of advertisers who seek a print, online and interactive medium to reach this attractive demographic. In addition to publications, HM has a growing consumer event business and an established ancillary products division.”
This is an outstanding domain name package and Hoffman made a great purchase! Congratulations go out to both the buyers and sellers in this deal.
Total domains that I seen change ownership are:
cooking.com
cooking.net
cooking.org
kitchenware.com
bakerguru.com
cook.net
cook.org
cookingdev.com
cookingdev.net
ecooking.com
email-cooking.com
poweredbycooking.com
Gordon Brothers assist companies with “change” and this results in assisting companies sell assets like intellectual property.
Chef.com, which was also tied to Chefs Catalog/Target Brands Inc. appears to have been sold already to Tuesday Morning, Inc. according to whois records and the current website gives information about exchanging gift cards for Cooking.com and CHEFS for a Target gift card. Gordon Brothers was listed in whois records until about April 1, 2016 when it switched to Tuesday Morning, Inc. who is a closeout retailer.
