Virtual Internet, a three year-old reseller of domain name registration and other internet services has gone public in London via the reverse takeover of a shell company, Charriol Plc. The deal is for 15m pounds for all the Virtual stock plus a placement of 1m pounds. Jason Drummond, Virtual’s founder, who started selling software at the age of 15, is the sole owner and managing director of the new company. He will end up with 69.1% of the capital of the enlarged group, which will change its name to Virtual Internet.net Plc. Virtual is a loss-making outfit that saw revenues of 524,939 pounds in the last financial year. In addition to the domain name registration, Virtual also provides web hosting and email services. Charriol Plc is quoted on the secondary alternative investment market (AIM). Rapid growth is expected for Virtual Internet, which offers domain name registration, web hosting services and e-commerce services. Under terms of the deal, Virtual Internet can earn up to an additional 2m pounds on the basis of two pounds for every one pound by which its first year revenues exceed 4m pounds. Drummond promises to aggressively expand into Europe and the US market. Virtual Internet claims to have registered 7,000 domain names and hosts 3,000 web sites. It reckons it extends the naming operation model run by Network Solutions Inc to the international market – although that ignores the fact that NSI has some 150 resellers around the world and owns a company that does registration is all the world’s country-code domain names. Virtual believes it competes effectively with Verio Inc in hosting services. The company has 35 staff and is currently engaged in a trial to become AOL UK’s exclusive provider of domain name registration, email, e-commerce and web-hosting services. Charriol’s shares will be suspended at 117.5 pence until shareholders vote on the deal at an extraordinary meeting in January.
