US-based Gullwing Ventures is to auction the never before used domain name, www.financialservices.com. The auctioneer believes the title will be snapped up by an online financial supermarket or content aggregator.
Other uses may be to capture traffic for diversion to another site, or to align an existing brand in an effort to make it synonymous with financial services or as a gateway and portal for the financial services industry.
Recent sales of other high profile domains such as Bank of America's purchase of loans.com for $3 million, ABN Amro Bank's purchase of Mortgage.com for $1.8 million and eCompanies purchase of Business.com for $7.5 million highlight the potential value of simple Web domains.
"Due to the large number of Fortune 500 companies and other global financial services companies inquiring into the availability of our domain, we felt now was the time to bring this unrivaled name to market", says John Irving, co-founder of Gullwing. .
Bidding for the domain will commence on 12 March, 2001 and will continue through 25 April, 2001. The auction will be conducted using sealed bids with the winner determined from the highest bid received on or prior to the closing date of the auction. Gullwing has retained the accounting firm of Tonneson & Company CPAs, PC to manage the auction process and the transfer of the domain.