Verio Inc, pursuing its aggressive strategy of growth through acquisition, has completed the first of what it hopes will be many purchases outside the United States. Verio has taken an 80% stake in WWW-Service AG, a German web hosting provider with annual revenues in the $5m range. The company, which has its German-language home page at http://www.www-service.com/, handles domain name registration, email and site hosting for customers as varied as Fuji Photo Film Europe, Banque Nationale de Paris and Siemens. The remaining 20% of WWW-Service is owned by Boca Raton, Florida- based internet service provider Hiway Technologies Inc. By a not- too-extraordinary coincidence, Verio has already acquired HiWay, for $330m back in July (CI No 3,463). As soon as the acquisitions have closed, WWW-Service’s 10,000 web sites will be added to Verio’s established base of 60,000 and Hiway’s 90,000-or-so, to create what Verio devoutly hopes will be an international web hosting force. The company, however, isn’t disclosing what it paid for its new foothold in the untapped European market.
