HomeTrust Bank (HomeTrust Bancshares Inc., the holding company of HomeTrust Bank) of Asheville, North Carolina acquires the premium 3 letter domain name HTB.com from GoDaddy’s (GDDY) NameFind investment domain name portfolio.
In a very likely six figure domain name transaction, the NASDAQ HTBI publicly traded company HomeTrust Bancshares Inc. acquired a great domain name. Similar domains in GoDaddy’s domain portfolio currently hold a minimum offer amount of around $130,000 due to some research by DotWeekly. There is plenty of support from past 3 letter .com domain name sales to suggest HTB.com could have sold well into the six figures, based on the minimum $130K offer and respectively reported domain name sales in 2017 like Fly.com $2.8M, ETH.com $2M, OFO.com $1M+ WMP.com $275K, WMN.com $275K, DCC.com $175K & BMT.com $152K. (most higher domain name sales go unreported to note)
This is a BIG domain name upgrade for HomeTrust Bank, for several reasons. Not only are they going to a premium 3 letter .com domain that is 13 characters shorter than the currently used domain, they also remove the fact that HomeTrust Bank was using HomeTrustBanking.com, which didn’t match its branding. I’m sure that ing was forgotten by people trying to email the company, business communication and web visitors.
The branded term of HomeTrust Bank and it’s matching domain name, HomeTrustBank.com is owned by a different company called Home Trust Savings Bank. That is a problem! Also to note, there are many companies in general called HomeTrust, with 199 actively registered .com domain names that simply start with HomeTrust.
This may even lead to a rebranding? HomeTrust Bank could rebrand as its acronym HTB to separate its “HomeTrust” brand and be less confusing as to who is HomeTrust and what they offer. It’s an option at least and it may be something they consider with the new domain name asset.
I did reach out to both companies for comment but sadly, GoDaddy was not able to provide comment on the sale and I have not heard back from HomeTrust Bank at time of publishing. I will update if HTB replies.
Congrats to both the buyer and seller!
Smart!
Very Smart 🙂
Good read, thanks.
In the other hand the 3 letter dotcom’s without meaning (or company acronymn match) are taking a bloody beating at the auction houses it seems to me that investors are exiting that particular segment of the market, seen some going for $1x,xxx
Great research and very good upgrade!