eToys Bankruptcy Auction: Witnessing History!
Just got back from spending several days in Wilmington, DE attending the bankruptcy auction for “The Parent Company”, which included the businesses of eToys, Baby Universe, and several other business units, along with a valuable domain portfolio. I was taking a stab at acquiring eToys and/or Toys.com, but some big guns were there and prices were higher than I was prepared to pay for the biggest assets.
It was an absolutely CRAZY day of ups and downs. I arrived @ 10am Wednesday and didn’t leave until nearly 2:30am — and the action involving eToys & Toys.com was *still* going on! The high bidder for eToys + Baby Universe assets — an LLC we believe to be an acquisition vehicle of Toys R Us — paid $2,150,000, and a group backed by some big domain industry guys paid $1,250,000 for the Toys.com site. I’m the “back-up” bid for eToys.com @ $750,000, but it’s highly doubtful that the other deal falls apart.
I didn’t leave empty-handed. On behalf of a friend, we acquired the following names:
- Birthdays.com, .net & .org
- Birthday.net
- Ebirthdays.com
- E-birthdays.com & .net
- Happybirthdays.com
- eParties.com
- Pinata.com
Fun to be mentioned in TechCrunch. Also see Ron Jackson’s coverage on the event in DN Journal.