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GOTHAM CITY RESEARCH LLC

Endurance International Group:


A Web of Deceit
Price Target: $0.00 per share

Endurance View
ARPU increased +11%
High Quality Subscribers
High Quality Products
We are transparent and honest
Customers First
We leave it better than we found it

Reality
ARPU decreased -13%
History of terrorist & spam/malware subs
R&D as % revenue is 1/6th of Godaddys
A U.A.E. subsidiary tried to deceive the US
Service outages, poor customer service
Customers say otherwise; High churn

The United States filed an early warning against all 31 proposals submitted by Radix Registry because
the application "inappropriately" included a supposed emailed recommendation from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Those proposals - which were for options like.shop,.web,.bank and.law - did not
have FBI backing, the federal government wrote.
Radix Registry is an Undisclosed Subsidiary of Endurance International Group

Disclaimer:
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Page 2 of 61

Table of Contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.

Disclaimer
Summary
Introduction
EIGI Uses Related Parties (Itself?) to Inflate Earnings
30%-67% of Directis Revenues are Suspect
EIGIs Undisclosed U.A.E. subsidiary and its False Credentials
Average Revenue per Subscriber is Down -13%, Not Up +11%
Suspect Customers: Terrorism & Malware-related
Underinvestment leads to Service Outages and High Churn
40%-100%+ of Profits are Suspect: Putting it all Together
Valuation: Interest Expense Exceeds Normalized Adj. EBITDA
Appendix A: The Ravichandran Ties that Blind
Appendix B: Directi Revenue Does Not Reconcile
Appendix C: Organic Growth Calculations
End Notes

Page 3 of 61

GOTHAM CITY RESEARCH LLC


a GOTHAM CITY RESEARCHS OPINIONS

EIGI shares will go to $0.00 per share, as the company will


struggle to service its debt. Normalized EBITDA margins do
not cover interest expense.
Recent years reported EBITDA benefited from attracting
Blinkx-like revenue (spam/malware, terrorism, etc.).
EIG profits at the expense of its customers (service
outages, poor customer service, etc.).

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

40%-100%+ of EIGIs reported profits are suspect.


2014 Average Revenue per Subscriber (ARPS) actually
declined -13%. EIGIs 10K claims ARPS grew +11%.
Organic growth overstated ~3x. We calculate organic
growth to be ~5.6%, not 13.0%-15.0% as EIG claims.
Directis revenues per the Indian filings are 30%-67% lower
than reported in EIGIs 10K.
Directi revenue figures within the EIGI 10K do not add up.
EIGI paid 17% of its 12-14 EBITDA to a related party tied
to the CEO. The related party seems to be Endurance.
No international revenue disclosures, despite promoting
itself as an international growth concern.
An undisclosed subsidiary falsely claimed to the US
Government that the FBI recommended them.
EIGI's BlueHost, JustHost, HostGator and HostMonster
hosted terrorist websites as recently as few weeks ago.
EIGI domains hosted 1,000s of spam/malware-related sites
per spam/malware watchdogs (the hosting worlds Blinkx).
EIGI spends ~1/6th on core infrastructure vs Godaddy.
Customer reviews are consistently poor.
A 15+ year industry executive states EIGI uses a churn
model/definition that is not industry common practice,
while using industry terminology.
EIGI is free cash flow negative. Godaddy is FCF positive.
The management team (including the CEO) recently sold
~30% of their stake in EIGI.

Company: Endurance
International Group
CEO: Hari Ravichandran
Ticker: EIGI
Exchanges: NASDAQ
Price Target: $0.00/share
Share price: $21.94/share
Market cap: $3.03B
52-week high: $23.49
52-week low: $11.88
Shares outstanding:
132.36M
2014 FCF: -226M
EBITDA 3-year avg: $70M
Interest expense 3-year
avg: $94M
2014 Cash: $33M
2014 Debt: $1,020M
Fiscal Year: Dec. 31
Auditor: BDO
IPO Date: November 2013
(JOBs ACT IPO)

Page 4 of 61

INTRODUCTION
Endurance International Group is an extraordinary company. EIGIs stock has risen 2x since going public
in late 2013, handily outperforming its peers. The company has also generated industry-leading margins1:
ADJUSTED EBITDA MARGIN - EIGI vs PEERS
2012
2013
2014
GDDY
19.1%
17.4%
19.6%
WWWW
35.5%
31.1%
29.8%
EIGI
45.8%
40.0%
37.4%

Yet Endurance also appears to be an extraordinarily poor company, bleeding cash:

EIGI Free Cash Flow vs Peers


2012
2013
2014
$ in 000s
$46,745 ($55,153)
$73,249
GDDY
$62,788 $88,082
$82,794
WWWW
($306,652) ($94,294) ($226,156)
EIGI
We tend to get excited when we see such diverging qualities in a company, so we decided to examine
further. These initial red flags troubled us, as they tend to be indicative of extraordinarily bad companies:

High debt level for a traditionally low ARPU and high churn business.
Related party transactions between EIGI and entities tied to EIGI CEO.
No International revenue disclosure, despite promoting itself as an international growth story.
Suspect accounting, some of which widely deviates from its peers.

We dug deeper. Our due diligence spanned across several continents and included industry experts
input. We have come to believe that Endurance is, indeed, an extraordinary company just for all the
wrong reasons. Once we learned that CEO Hari Ravichandran has been spending an unusual amount of
time promoting the stock rather than running the business in recent months 15+ investor meetings in
recent months2 we decided to share our findings with the public.
Gotham City Research believes 40%-100%+ of reported profits are suspect, and that normalized profits
do not cover interest expense for the following reasons:

Related party transactions account for 17% of EBITDA, and resemble transactions with it-self.
ARPU declined -13% yet EIGIs 10K claims ARPU grew +11%.
Accounting irregularities found with its International business.
A significant undisclosed subsidiary lied to the US government about its credentials.
The company hosts terrorist-related websites, and a high % of malware/spam-related accounts.
Churn is high as a result of service outages, poor customer support, and slow loading speeds.
EIGI claims otherwise, yet EIGI has under-invested in its business, spending 80% less on
infrastructure vs. Godaddy.
Page 5 of 61

EIGI Uses Related Parties (Itself?) to Inflate Earnings


Endurances EBITDA Margins are Exceptionally High Relative to its Peers
EIGIs adjusted EBITDA margins handily outperform its web hosting peers. Godaddy, the industry leader,
is twice as large as Endurance yet its reported Adjusted EBITDA margins are half that of EIGIs 1:

ADJUSTED EBITDA MARGIN - EIGI vs PEERS


2012
2013
2014
GDDY
19.1%
17.4%
19.6%
WWWW
35.5%
31.1%
29.8%
EIGI
45.8%
40.0%
37.4%
Although improbable, its possible that EIGI is actually a great business, leadings its peers, in an
otherwise commoditized industry. Endurance attributes its superior performance to best in class cloud
enablement technology platform, high quality products, and high quality subscribers: 2

Gotham City Research believes that the companys above representations are not in agreement with
reality. In fact, it seems that the Company is characterized by low quality products, low quality
subscribers, mediocre/poor technology platforms. The remainder of the report details how exactly. We
first begin by explaining how we believe EIGI uses related parties to overstate earnings.
Page 6 of 61

EIGI Uses Related Parties, Improper Accounting, & Other Dubious Practices to Overstate Earnings
We believe the keys to EIGIs success have been its Ravichandran related parties, suspect accounting, &
other dubious business practices (these have helped the CEO unload ~30% of his shares recently). With
respect to the related parties, we believe the company has engaged in two parallel schemes:

EIGI uses the Ravichandran entities and its other captive vendors to overstate profits:
EIGI Secretly
Controls
Ravichandran
Entities

Realized Capital
Gains in EIGI Stock
Compensate the
Ravichandrans

EIGI Uses them to


Manufacture its
Reported Profits &
Accounting

EIGI Stock Price


Appreciates in
Value

Ravichandran entities sell its services to EIGI at below-market prices (while harming customers
via poor user experiences), allowing EIGI to achieve an artificial cost advantage:
Ravichandran
Entities provide
EIGI services
below-market

Realized Capital
Gains in EIGI Stock
Compensate the
Ravichandrans

EIGI benefits by
Achieving
Artificially Higher
Profit Margins

EIGI's Positive
Earnings Boost
EIGI Stock Price

Page 7 of 61

The Largest Related Parties are Secretly Controlled by the Company Itself

Endurance the Customer

Glowtouch the Vendor

CEO Ravichandran

Director Ravichandran

Gowex, Quindell, Tile Shop, Crazy Eddies, Sino-Forest, and many other frauds shared (at least) one
common characteristic: material related party transactions with captive or quasi-captive entities. In
many cases, these captive or quasi-captive entities were substantially the companies themselves.
Gotham City Research believes that EIGIs largest related parties are substantially EIGI itself for the
following reasons:

Endurance CEO Hari Ravichandran and/or immediate family were and/or is a director and/or
owner of related parties, Glowtouch Technologies and Innovative Business Services (IBS).
The transactions are material to EIGI, as the transactions have accounted for at least 16.5% of
2012-2014 EBITDA.
EIGIs payments to Glowtouch account for the majority of Glowtouchs revenues.
Glowtouch currently staffs and operates the HostGator India (an Endurance subsidiary) business.
Glowtouch/Endurance employees name Glowtouch/Endurance as if theyre the same entities
on linkedin or other on-line profiles.
http://www.glowtouch.co.in/ website doesnt work as of April 17, 2015.
We have documentation that shows Glowtouch pays &/or receives payment-in-kind from EIGI.
Pattern of related party transactions beyond those involving Ravichandran, including loans at
favorable rates between Endurance and its management & consulting contracts.
EIGI was exempted from the auditor attestation requirements in the assessment of internal
control over financial reporting, because it technically qualifies as an emerging growth
company per the JOBS Act (despite being in business since the late 1990s).

Endurance International appears to be web hostings Crazy Eddies, but with an Indian twist:
Crazy Eddies
Antar Family
Suspect Accounting
Seemingly high growth
Captive Vendor (Wren Distributors)
Related Party Loans & Other Payments

Endurance International Group


Ravichandran Family
Suspect Accounting
Seemingly high growth
Entities tied to the CEO
Related Party Loans & Other Payments
Page 8 of 61

The Ravichandran Related Party Transactions at least 16.5% of EBITDA


Endurance has paid $34.5 million roughly equal to 16.5% of EBITDA to Ravichandran companies (i.e.,
substantially to itself) over the last 3 years3:
ENDURANCE's PAYMENTS TO RELATED PARTIES
$ in 1,000s
2012
2013
2014
EBITDA
$4,651
$59,537
$146,427
$8,598
$10,300
Payments to Related Parties
$15,800
184.9%
17.3%
10.8%
Payments as % of EBITDA

TOTAL
$210,615
$34,698
16.5%

The above payments include those made out to Glowtouch Technologies, Diya Systems, Tregaron India
Holdings (Glowtouch refers to all Ravichandran entities), and IBS.

Endurance CEO Hari Ravichandran as Director of Glowtouch


Haris employment contract with Endurance4:

So Hari Ravichandran, according to the employment agreement, is concurrently the CEO of Endurance
and Director of Glowtouch Technologies.
Glowtouch Technologies = Tregaron India Holdings LLC = Diya Systems
See the appendix for further details regarding the Ravichandrans web, but here are the highlights:

Glowtouch Technologies = Tregaron India Holdings LLC.


Diya Systems is a subsidiary of Glowtouch, run by Endurance CEOs father.
Tregaron India Holdings owned by Haris father and mother
Haris sister is President of Glowtouch. Hari seems to owe here a few favors.

Page 9 of 61

Endurance Accounts for Most of Glowtouchs Revenue


Crazy Eddies, the leading electronics retailer of the 1980s, used a distributor to facilitate its accounting
fraud. Crazy Eddies distributor was not a related party, but most of its revenue came from Crazy Eddies.
As a result, Crazy Eddies exerted significant control over the distributor, helping it inflate profits.
Sam Antar, former CFO of Crazy Eddies (CRZY), describes in detail how CRZYs cozy relationship with
its distributor/supplier helped it commit accounting fraud5:
Crazy Eddies had a very cozy relationship with a vendor known as Wren Distributors (Wren).
We were Wren's largest customer, accounting for 35% of its revenues. We purchased over 10%
of our merchandise from Wren. In order to inflate our inventory without adding to our accounts
payable, I asked Wren to ship us $3 -$4 million in merchandise before 1986 year-end, but to
hold off billing until after the auditors completed the year-end audit. Because the merchandise
was included in the year-end inventory count without recording the corresponding accounts
payable to Wren, we were able to inflate income by $3-$4 million.
In 1987, we continued to take advantage of our relationship with Wren. I pressured Wren to ship
us about $5-$7 million in merchandise before year-end. The merchandise was included in the
year-end inventory count without being included in the amount owed to the vendor.
The Endurance/Glowtouch setup seems worse as we believe Ravichandrans grip over the related
parties is far tighter. Endurance accounts for most of the companys revenue, just as Crazy Eddies did
with its distributor, corroborating our belief6:
Most of Glowtouch's Revenue is from EIGI
$ in millions
2010
2011
2012
Glowtouch Total Revenue
$7.5
$8.1
$10.4
from EIGI
$5.1
$5.5
$6.4
From EIGI as % of Total
68.4%
67.8%
61.5%

2013
$13.2
$7.3
55.3%

Glowtouch Does Not Even Mention Endurance as a Case Study


Seems strange given Endurance accounts for most of its revenue7:

Page 10 of 61

Glowtouch Indias website does not function


Glowtouch Indias operations seem largely non-functional, casting further doubt that Glowtouch is an
independent entity: http://www.glowtouch.co.in/

Endurance India and Glowtouch India Share the Same Address


Endurances address in India (Hostgator is an Endurance subsidiary)8:

Glowtouch, via its Diya subsidiary shares the same address as Endurance i.e. Hostgator India9:

Page 11 of 61

Glowtouch Pays Endurance or Receives Payments in Kind


Glowtouch/Diya seems to pay or receive payment in kind from Endurance10:

Endurance/Glowtouch Employees Refer to Endurance/Glowtech Interchangeably


A man by the name of Vivek Ahuja refers to Endurance International Group / Glowtouch Technologies as
if they were the same entity in his linked profile: (incidentally, CEO Hari Ravichandran writes a
recommendation):11

Page 12 of 61

Glowtouch Helps Endurance Manufacturer Margin


Glowtouch seems like the perfect vehicle whereby Endurance can manufacture reported profits as they
wish in order to meet Wall Streets quarterly expectations (especially when combined with a slew of
accounting shenanigans we detail in following sections)12:

EIGI Consistently Beats Sell-side/Guidance Adj. EBITDA


2013
2014
Q3
Q4
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Adj. EBITDA (Estimate)
Adj. EBITDA (Reported)

$41.2

$38.5

$56.7

$55.3

$56.3

$60.0

$49.9

$46.2

$59.1

$56.5

$58.0

$62.0

$ in millions
Glowtouch Helps Endurance Make Margin at the Expense of Endurance Customers
GlowTouch provides outsourcing services such as: customer and technical support, billing support, web
development and maintenance, data entry and quality assurance (QA) testing.13
Endurances tech infrastructure spending is less than 1/5th of Godaddys (as a % of revenue):14

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT SPENDING


GDDY
WWWW
WIX
EIGI
EIGI as % of GDDY

2012

2013

2014

19.3%
8.4%
38.4%
4.7%
24.5%

18.4%
6.6%
36.9%
4.5%
24.3%

18.3%
5.5%
40.8%
3.1%
16.9%

Unsurprisingly, Endurance customers have experienced frequent service


customer/technical support, slow speeds, etc. (as detailed later in this report)15:

outages,

poor

Service Outages are Worsening

Date
Aug-13
Dec-13
Apr-14
May-14
Oct-14

Duration
24 hours of downtime
3 days of downtime
24 hours of downtime
9 hours of downtime
5 days of downtime

Gotham City Research believes these are no coincidences. We also believe that EIGIs practice of
profiting at the expense of its customers is coming to an end. EIGI is no longer a private company
operating in the shadows. Furthermore, Godaddy recently went public. Sunshine will prove to be the
best disinfectant.

Page 13 of 61

30%-67% of Directis Revenues are Suspect


Endurance International Group claims that Directi and International are priorities for organic growth 1:

Given that Directi is an International company, the #2 and #4 priorities listed above suggest that EIGIs
international business is a very big priority. Yet EIGI reveals very little information about its international
operations. We think we know why.
Gotham City Research believes that Endurances international revenues are neither accurate nor reliable.
We specifically believe 30%-67% of Directs revenues are of dubious quality for the following reasons:

EIGI does not disclose International revenues (yet pitches itself to Wall Street as an International
Cloud play). Godaddy discloses international revenue.
EIGIs International tangible long-lived assets are only 2.9% of total tangible long-lived assets.
30%-67% of Directis reported revenue do not reconcile with Directis Indian filings.
EIGI has a few different figures for Directi revenue in its 2014 10K. None of them reconcile with
one another. Its as if Directi has several sets of books, just as the characters in The Producer did.
EIGI management did not assess the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting of
Directi.
The Directi website does not appear to be maintained or updated.
Directis owners have publicly claimed that its business is worth $300 million + for many years,
yet EIGI acquired it for 67% lower, roughly ~$100 million.
EIGI has an undisclosed international subsidiary that EIGI secretly acquired for ~$60 million. We
believe this is the Domain Name Business EIGI cryptically refers to in the 10K. We think we
know why EIGI does not disclose this subsidiary. See the next section for more information
about this subsidiary.

Page 14 of 61

EIGI Sells Itself as an International Growth Play but it Does Not Disclose International Revenues
Endurances explanation, as to why it does not disclose international revenue is one of the funniest (and
absurd) weve ever read. It claims it is impracticable to do so, and that there are limitations in certain
accounting systems2:
"It is impracticable for the Company to provide revenue information by geography for December
31, 2012, 2013 and 2014 due to unavailability of geographic information for some subscribers
acquired as part of previous acquisitions as well as limitations in certain accounting systems that
are currently in use."
Gotham City Research believes EIGIs explanation above is a serious misrepresentation (were reporting
EIGI to the SEC and other regulatory bodies), for the following reasons:

EIGI discloses tangible long-lived assets and total loss before income taxes of international origin
(so much for impracticable and limitations in certain accounting systems)

EIGI discloses Directi revenue (though there are serious issues with the Directi numbers) and
Directi is an international company. So how is it impracticable for EIGI to report total
international revenue, when it already discloses its largest contributor to international revenue?
CEO Ravichandran states: But primarily all the growth on the international side at this point for
this year we anticipate coming through organic means.3 How can he make this claim about
international organic growth without knowing the 2014 international revenue?

Page 15 of 61

So its not enough data to actually have a sort of a real comparison there. But international -talk about the Directi business to be the large portion of our localized international business, it
was about 11%ish of our revenue, between 10% to 11%. Did CEO Ravichandran say 11% of
revenue was from localized international business ?
Godaddy discloses international revenue4

Endurance has paid its auditor considerable sums of money in the past5

EIGI has Paid its Auditor More than the US Government


$ in 1,000s
2012
2013
2014
TOTAL
$796
$1,502
$2,615
Income taxes paid
$4,913
Tax fees paid to BDO
$538
$1,080
$1,343
$2,960
Audit + related fees
$695
$1,253
$1,344
$3,292
TOTAL paid to BDO
$1,234
$2,332
$2,687
$6,253
Paid to BDO vs USA
1.5x
1.6x
1.0x
1.3x

it seems EIGI has the resources to render itself able to report international revenue (Endurance
has paid BDO more in fees than it has paid the US Federal or Local governments in taxes). One
would think that the least EIGI can do to thank Uncle Sam for the low tax bill (assuming they are
filing taxes truthfully), would be to file accurate, reliable, and truthful financial statements.
Perhaps its too much to ask.
EIGIs Reported Directi Revenue Figures are Unreliable
After reviewing EIGIs Directi figures in EIGIs 10K, one would get the impression EIGI manages several
sets of books just as the characters in The Producers did. $29 million does not equal $31.3 million and
EIGI provides no explanations as to why they differ (the highlighted amounts differ)6:

For the year ended December 31, 2014, $29.0 million of revenue from the Companys 2014
acquisition of Directi was included in the Companys consolidated statement of operations and
comprehensive loss.

Page 16 of 61

Revenue increased by $109.5 million, or 21%, from $520.3 million for the year ended
December 31, 2013 to $629.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2014. Of this increase,
$31.3 million was related to revenues from our acquisition of Directi.

The company makes the following claim:


Management did not assess the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting of Directi,
Webzai, BuyDomains and Arvixe because of the timing of the acquisitions which were completed
during 2014. Our audit of internal control over financial reporting of Endurance International Group
Holdings, Inc. also did not include an evaluation of the internal control over financial reporting of
Directi, Webzai, BuyDomains and Arvixe.
The above explanation is notably strange, because Endurance completed the Directi acquisition by
January 2014, unlike Webzai, BuyDomains, and Arvixe, which were acquired in Q4 2014. Is the company
hedging itself, fully aware that their reported Directi figures are inaccurate and unreliable?

This explanation does not reconcile Directi, Webzai, BuyDomains and Arvixe represented
approximately 3% and (2)% of our total assets and net assets, respectively as of December 31,
2014 and 6% of our total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2014.
a. With respect to revenue, the application of purchase accounting requires us to record
purchase accounting adjustments for acquired deferred revenue, which reduces the
revenue recorded from acquisitions.

30%-67% of Directis Revenues According to EIGI 10K Dont Reconcile with Indian Filings
We reviewed Directis Indian filings and estimated total Directis revenue according to them 7:

2014 Directi Revenue - EIGI 10K vs Directi Indian Filings


Low
High
Average
Indian Filings $12,053,864
$19,523,551 $15,788,707
10K Adj. Revenue $48,500,000
$48,500,000 $48,500,000
% variance
(75.1%)
(59.7%)
(67.4%)
10K GAAP Revenue $29,000,000
$31,300,000 $30,150,000
% variance
(34.9%)
(24.3%)
(29.6%)
We calculated a Low and High in order to factor in:

Directi shifted revenue around between subsidiaries in 2013 and 2014


EIGIs representation of Directi GAAP revenue are inconsistent as we discussed in prior page.
On average, the variance between the Indian filings seems to fall between 30%-67%

See the appendix for a more detailed breakout of the above calculations.

Page 17 of 61

We believe the following likely explain the above variances:

Directi revenues are materially overstated (EIGIs refusal to disclose international revenue and
existence of several varying figures for Directi revenue support this theory).
The unexplained differences are fully explained by the Radix FZC and/or P.D.R. Solutions FZC
subsidiaries.
Endurance does not want to draw attention to its international operations (we explore why, in
the next section), specifically because it has problem undisclosed subsidiaries.
Endurance does not want to draw attention to its international operations (we explore why, in
the next section), specifically because they play critical roles in driving suspect
malware/clickfraud related revenue.

Directi.com about section on website hasnt been updated since 2007 8

Page 18 of 61

EIGIs undisclosed U.A.E. subsidiary & its False Credentials

Endurance mentions buying a Domain Name Business (without naming it) in its most recent 10K 1:
In addition, in connection with the acquisition of Directi, the Company was initially obligated to
make additional aggregate payments of up to approximately $62.0 million subject to specified
terms, conditions and operational contingencies. Of this $62.0 million, the Company has
committed a total of $36.2 million consisting of cash payments of $27.2 million and future earnout payments of $9.0 million to purchase a domain name business from a company associated
with the founders of Directi Holdings
Radix Registry is the undisclosed subsidiary and has misrepresented its credentials to the USA
We believe Radix is the Domain Name Business for the following reasons:

Radix is related to the founders of Directi Holdings, the Turakhia brothers & Brijesh Joshi.
Radix is a domain name business (specifically participates in gTLD auctions)
Those familiar with Directi and Endurance (at the time acquisition discussions) wrote, In buying
Directi, Endurance would also get Radix Registry which has 29 active new gTLD applications of
which 26 are in contention. It seems they were off on the deal terms, but right on the target.
Who.is shows Radix Registrys name as PDR LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
PDR LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Endurance:

Radix FZC and P.D.R. Solutions FZC (a EIGI subsidiary) are in the same building in the UAE.

Page 19 of 61

Radix Registry Lied to the US Government and its Radix/Directi Founders Are Highly Suspect
The US Federal Government filed an early warning against all 31 proposals submitted by Radix Registry,
in Radixs attempt to register the .army, .navy and .airforce and other addresses on the Internet. Radixs
application "inappropriately" included a supposed emailed recommendation from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (seems the equivalent of a CEO lying about graduating from Harvard)2:

Radix Registry is suspect for reasons beyond attempting to deceive the US Government:

Radix FZC (its legal name) is a Free Zone Company in Hamriyah Free Zone, a tax haven in the
United Arab Emirates (think of it as the Singapore for Indians and others).
Radix FZC does not appear in the Hamriyah Free Zone company directory, despite Hamriyah
listing over 5,890 entities (it is our understanding that there are only 5,000ish total entities).3
PrivacyProtect.org, controlled by Radix Registrys founders (i.e. the Turakhia brothers), have
been the losing respondent in more than 60 Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy
(UDRP) proceedings.4
The ICANN gTLD Applicant Guidebook forbids applicants with a history of adverse UDRP
decisions from applying for new gTLDs.

Endurance Hosts an Entity U.A.E. has Designated as a Terrorist Organization


United Arab Emirates Designated the Muslim American Society (apparently MAS was created in secret
by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader) as a terrorist organization.5 Endurance hosts the Muslim American
Society via its Fastdomain and Hostmonster subsidiaries6:

Page 20 of 61

Average Revenue per Subscriber is Down -13%, Not Up +11%


The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. Aristotle

Reported Average Revenue per Subscriber (ARPS) is Growing but Actual ARPS is Declining
Despite the related party transactions, suspect international revenue, undisclosed subsidiary, and the
undisclosed subsidiarys lies, perhaps Endurance possesses a strong core business. After all, EIGI reports
very strong ARPU (they call it ARPS or Average Revenue per Subscriber, which in tech-land is similar
to Comp Store Sales) of over ~10%1:

EIGI's Reported ARPS


2011

2012

2013

$ 474,115 $ 528,119 $
Adjusted revenue
2,845
3,223
3,502
Total subscribers
$12.84
$12.92
$13.09
Reported ARPS
0.62%
1.32%
% change
Revenue in 1,000s of $s, and total subscribers in 1,000s

2014
651,945
4,087
$14.48
10.62%

Page 21 of 61

Not only is EIGIs reported ARPS growing, Endurance appears to be outperforming its peers2:

EIGI ARPU & ARPU Growth vs Peers


2012

GDDY
WWWW
EIGI

$7.75
$13.44
$12.92

GDDY
WWWW
EIGI

2013

2014

$8.67
$9.50
$14.24
$14.62
$13.09
$14.48
% change in ARPU
11.8%
9.6%
6.0%
2.7%
1.3%
10.6%

Icing on the cake: Directis ARPS looks breathtakingly amazing and accretive to overall ARPS. The
implied Directi ARPS is $72 per month or 5x-6x EIGIs historical ARPS:

DIRECTI ARPS ACCORDING TO EIG


2013

n.a.
Directi subscribers
n.a.
Directi ARPS
n.a.
EIGI Reported ARPS
$13.09
$ & subscribers in 1,000s except ARPS
Directi revenue

2014
$48,499
56

$72.17
$14.48

We estimate that EIGIs true ARPS actually declined in 2014 by around ~13%3:
EIGI Actual 2014 ARPS Declined
2011

2012

2013

$ 474,115 $ 528,119 $
Adjusted revenue
3,223
3,502
total subscribers - reported 2,845
1,000
Directi end subscribers
total subscribers - actual
4,502
$12.92
$13.09
Reported ARPS ######
Actual ARPS 12.84
$12.92
$13.09
% growth in ARPS
$
0.01
1.3%
All figures except ARPS are in 1,000s
total subscribers subtracts the 56 implied directi resellers.

2014
651,945
4,031
1,000

5,031
$14.48

$11.40
(12.9%)

How Endurances Subscriber is not necessarily a subscriber


Gotham City Research believes that a subscriber is a subscriber. The definition is and should be quite
simple. In fact, Godaddy seems to agree (their definition of a subscriber is simple and clean relative to
EIGIs). Endurance, on the other hand, defines a subscriber as either a customer or a reseller (a reseller
may account for 10s if not 100s of customers).
Page 22 of 61

According to Endurance International Group4:


Total Subscribers = Subscribers (excluding Directi) + Directis Resellers
According to Gotham City Research:
Total Subscribers = Subscribers (excluding Directi) + Directis Subscribers
When it comes to Endurances recent acquisition, Directi, EIGI adds Directis resellers as subscribers to
EIGIs total subscriber count, rather than Directs end subscribers. We cant think of any good reasons
for doing this, given that Endurance includes its end subscribers in its subscriber count.
The customers added as a result of Directi includes a significant number of resellers, which
reduces the total amount of Directi's contribution to total subscribers because we count only the
resellers, and not their end customers, as subscribers.
EIGI includes the above clarification, that it counts Directis resellers (as customers), and not its end
customers, only in the 10Q not the 10K.

Reseller

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

subscriber

Additional Ways Endurances ARPS is Misrepresented


Endurance obfuscates the definition of a subscriber further than illustrated above:

In Q4 2014 the company changed the definition of a subscriber (which added increases
subscribers), and did not discuss this change on the quarterly call.
EIGI does not count as subscribers those who purchase only domain names as subscribers (but
they count the revenue!).
EIGI does not count subscribers those who access solutions via resellers as subscribers. The
directi adjustment we make does not account for domestic resellers that EIGI counts as
subscribers.

Investors rely on accurate figures from companies so that they can then make their investment
decisions accordingly. Clearly CEO Ravichandran and the Companys misrepresentations regarding ARPS
betray that trust.

Page 23 of 61

WWWW, EIGIs most comparable peer (and whose shares have declined -36% over the last 12 months),
has recently warned about ARPS declining:5
ARPU is expected to decline sequentially in the first quarter of 2015, primarily due to the issues
that impacted our DIY and DIFM businesses in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Endurances ARPS Dont Add Up A common symptom in cases where numbers are fabricated
Unsurprisingly, EIGIs reported ARPS does not add up to the calculated amounts derived from using the
figures they disclose:

ARPS Numbers Don't Reconcile


2011

Adjusted revenue
total subscribers
Reported ARPS
Calculated ARPS
Irregularity

2012

2013

474,115 $

528,119 $

2014
651,945

2,845

3,223

3,502

4,087

$12.84

$12.92

$13.09

$14.48

$
$

13.02 $
0.10 $

13.09 $
(0.00) $

14.32
(0.16)

Their reported ARPS excluding Directi do not add up either.


Godaddys ARPU is Lower than Endurances ARPU Possible Explanations
Even with the correct Directi adjustments, EIGIs ARPU exceeds Godaddys. Possible explanations:

Endurances slippery total subscriber definition may account for the entire variation. For
example, Endurance may count certain domestic resellers as subscribers, rather than counting
the end customers. This may sufficiently lower EIGIs ARPU.
Endurance may attractive far more suspect accounts, e.g. malware/spam accounts. These
accounts are probably very profitable on a per subscriber basis (we explore this further in the
following sections).

EIGIs Organic growth far lower than EIGI Claims


CEO Ravichandran claims that organic growth in 2013 adjusted revenue grew 17%, and 2014s adjusted
revenue organically grew between 13%-15%6:
For the GAAP revenue for the year, GAAP revenue grew to $520.3 million and adjusted
revenue to $528.1 million ahead of our adjusted revenue expectation of $525 million. Apart from
2012 acquisitions, adjusted revenue organically grew 17% CEO Hari Ravichandran
I would say that organically, when we think about the business, its a somewhere between 13%,
14%, 15% organic growth depending on what marketing programs are available each year.
Hari Ravichandran CEO of EIGI

Page 24 of 61

Gotham City Research believes organic growth is much lower in the 0%-7% range for 2013, and ~5%
for 2014:
EIGI's Revenue Organic Growth
2013

EIGI
Gotham

17.0%
5.9%

2014

13.0%-15.0%
5.6%

2013 Organic growth:

EIGI 2013 Organic Growth Calculation


2012
$ in 1,000s

2013

GAAP Revenue $292,156 $520,296


Purchase accounting adjustment
Homestead/Homegator/Other

$64,123

$7,311

$90,150 $245,800

Organic Revenue $266,129 $281,807


Organic Growth
5.9%

2014 Organic growth

EIGI 2014 Organic Growth Calculation


2013
$ in 1,000s
$520,296
GAAP revenue
$528,119
adjusted revenue
Directi
Arvixe, BuyDomains, & Webzai
Other acquisitions
Organic Revenue
Organic Growth

2014
$629,845
$651,945
($48,500)
($14,600)
($31,000)

$557,845
5.6%

2014s organic growth seems heavily dependent on domain-related businesses. This is strange, given the
company tends to downplay the importance of this business.
The presentation accompanying the Q4 2013 earnings call uses the word organic quite a bit, but does
not disclose organic revenue growth.
See the appendix for further details.

Page 25 of 61

Purchase Accounting Adjustments Irregularities


Just as Endurance disclosed 2 irreconcilable DIrecti revenue figures (i.e. the numbers dont add), there
appears to be a purchase accounting adjustment irregularity as well7:
On one hand the S-1 states Purchase accounting adjustments reduced 2012 revenue by $47.2 million.
Yet the ARPS derivation shows a $64.12 million adjustment:

Its theoretically possibly, but highly slippery, that the $17 million variance between the $47.2 million
and $64.12 million is a result of a GAAP purchase accounting adjustment vs a Non-GAAP
purchasing accounting adjustment. The problem is if this is the case, the Company did not disclose it.

Page 26 of 61

Suspect Customers: Terrorism & Malware-related

Some companies aim to improve long-term profitability by putting the customers needs first. Other
companies improve short-term profitability by profiting at their customers and/or others expense.
Blinkx, a click fraud/malware concern whose shares have declined over -80% since Ben Edelman
exposed their nefarious practices, is an example of the latter case. Blink engaged in suspect activities,
and the company eventually reaped what it sowed. Gotham City Research believes that Endurance
International Group resembles Blink, and EIGIs stock will share a similar fate. We specifically believe
that Endurance has been boosting profitability by turning a blind eye to the suspect but profitable
business of providing Internet hosting to harmful activities such as malware/spam and terrorism.
Endurance aggressively attracts customers, spending $23 on sales & marketing for every $100 it earns in
revenue. Thats twice as much as Godaddy spends1:

EIGI SALES & MARKETING SPENDING 2x GDDY


GDDY
EIGI
EIGI vs GDDY

2012

2013

2014

14.3%
28.4%
1.99x

12.9%
22.6%
1.76x

11.9%
23.3%
1.96x

Yet Endurance, at minimum lacks the infrastructure necessary to minimize suspect customers. It spends
only $3 on its tech infrastructure for every $100 it earns in revenue, less 1/5th Godaddy spending:

EIGI INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING 1/6th GDDY


GDDY
EIGI
EIGI vs GDDY

2012

2013

2014

19.3%
4.7%
0.25x

18.4%
4.5%
0.24x

18.3%
3.1%
0.17x

Page 27 of 61

The following further support our belief that (I) Endurance generates revenue from harmful activities (or
is willfully ignorant of the fact that their aggressive sales and marketing approach leads to ends justify
the means results) and (II) revenues-derived from these activities mask a high churn business:
Terrorist related

Endurance International Group was recently hacked for hosting terrorist website.
The list of hacked Endurance companies include: BlueHost, FastDomain, Hostgator,
HostMonster and JustHost.
Endurance was exposed by the Boston Globe for hosting Taliban-related website several years
ago. A senior executive at Endurance (still with the company) claimed its terms of service
explicitly prohibits terrorist-related activities.
The Terms of service for BlueHost, FastDomain, Hostgator, HostMonster and JustHost do not
explicitly forbid terrorism related activities. It seems Endurance only paid lip service back in
2008.
Endurance transacted with several "Specially Designated Nationals" ("SDNs) for years, even
though SDNs assets are blocked & U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
Endurance hosts a group designated by the UAE as a terrorist group. Recall that Endurance owns
a few UAE subsidiaries.

Malware/Spam related

Endurance has a far higher concentration of black-listed domains versus Godaddy, at 41% v. %11.
Endurances domains are consistently in the top 5-10 of Top 100 Registrars with Blacklisted
Domains.
EIGI owns many registrars with 80% or higher spam vs ham registrations.

Other

Endurance is a reseller of Tucows a.k.a. OPENSRS


Tucows prefers to simply pass on the information about illegal websites to its resellers without
requiring them to take any action.
Tucows is the largest registrar that fails to suspend rogue Internet pharmacy domain names,
which contrasts with GoDaddy and eNom who taken decisive action to prevent criminal activity
on their registration platforms.
Endurance is a Reseller of Tucows, Designated as Notorious by the US Government

Page 28 of 61

Endurance International Group Hacked ~1 Month Ago for Hosting Terrorist Websites
A hacking group that had hacked websites and social media accounts affiliated with the ISIS group,
recently hacked some of Endurance groups crown jewels (i.e., largest acquisitions), include BlueHost,
FastDomain, Hostgator, HostMonster and JustHost for hosting terrorist websites2:

Page 29 of 61

The hacker group warned Endurance International Group to stop hosting terrorist websites or next time
their DNS settings will be changed. Attracting terrorists as customers and underinvesting in core
infrastructure seems like a perfect recipe for disaster.
islam-army.com is one specific terrorist website that Endurance Hosts/Hosted 3

The twitter account of Bluehost was also hacked for hosting terrorists4:

Page 30 of 61

Endurance Does Not Deny Hosting Terrorist Websites


Endurance did not deny hosting terrorist websites. The company did not apologize, nor did it
speak out against terrorism nor take any responsibility for its role in hosting terrorist websites.
We also were unable to find any official press releases from the endurance, hostgator, or
bluehost websites (in fact, http://www.hostgator.com/press has not been updated since 2011).
However, Endurance did respond to media5:
Last night, Bluehosts Twitter account was compromised for a short period of time. Bluehost was
able to regain control of their Twitter account within a couple hours. We are continuing to
investigate this matter, but are viewing this as an unfortunate case of cybervandalismto to one of
our partners. HostGator.com was not affected by this issue.

HostGator:
We have taken all appropriate security measures to ensure that our platform is secure. Per our
security protocol, we will continue to conduct a thorough review of this incident.
Hostmonster:
We have regained control late last night and are investigating this matter extensively.

Endurances History with Terrorists and Specially Designated Nationals


An SDR is a designation the US Government makes to individuals Americans are (generally) prohibited
from dealing with (very special bad guys, according to the US Government):6
As part of its enforcement efforts, OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or
controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. It also lists individuals, groups,
and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under programs that are not
country-specific. Collectively, such individuals and companies are called "Specially Designated
Nationals" or "SDNs." Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from
dealing with them

Page 31 of 61

An Endurance subsidiary was doing business with an SDR named Kahane Chai for many years after Chai
was designated an SDN (in 2001)7:

It seems Endurances subsidiary did business with Kahane Chai for at least 6 years 8:

Endurance detected a few additional SDRs as well (these are just the publicly disclosed ones): 9

Page 32 of 61

Endurance and the Taliban Nearly All Endurance Companies Dont Expressly Prohibit Terrorism
Endurance has had terrorism-related problem going back to 2008. It hosted a website that taught its
members how to outfit a suicide bomber, included al-Qaeda propaganda videos, and offered a Taliban
video showing the beheadings of three spies:10

Endurance International previously hosted another website that supported holy war in Iraq.11
Most Endurance Company Terms of Service Does Not Expressly Prohibit Terrorism
Jean McCarthy, marketing director for Endurance International, told the Boston Globe:
"Our terms of service expressly prohibit the use of our services for terrorist or unlawful
purposes,"
We checked several of Endurance companies terms of service, and we found the above claim is
substantially false12:

Bluehosts terms of service does not expressly prohibit the use of its services for terrorist
purposes
Hostgators terms of service does not expressly prohibit the use of its services for terrorist
purposes
Hostmonsters terms of service does not expressly prohibit the use of its services for terrorist
purposes
Bluehosts terms of service does not expressly prohibit the use of its services for terrorist
purposes
Bizlands expressly prohibits the use of its services for terrorist purposes.

Page 33 of 61

Endurance and Its High Concentration of Black-listed websites


Endurance International Group seems to host a disproportionately high percentage of malware/spam13:
Endurance High % of Black-listed websites
Godaddy Endurance
1,052
Black-listed websites
969
9,473
Active websites
2,374
Black-listed as % of Active
11.1%
40.8%

Uribl gathered the Top 100 Registrars with Blacklisted Domains, and Endurance is consistently one of
the top 4 (if you add all its subsidiary domains). The list is updated on a rolling 5 day period, but weve
found that Endurance has consistently ranked highly in total number, as well as yielding a high % of
spam sites versus non spam sites.
Note that one of the largest contributors to the Endurance related black-listed websites are from Directi
related companies. publicdomainregistry.com, the undisclosed subsidiary, is one of the largest blacklisted website registrars:

Specific example of the kinds of malware the above monitors14:

Page 34 of 61

Bizland (a.k.a. Endurance) history of malicious activities


66.96.147.66 (Endurance/Bizland IP address) has been listed on Cyberwarzone because it has a history
of malicious activities. The IP has been reported on various domains which keep track of malicious IPs.15
Reasons why 66.96.147.66 is listed on Cyberwarzone:

History of being on a blacklist


History of being used in an aggressive marketing campaign
History of malicious traffic or use
Triggered as a spam-bot or aggressive crawler
We were lazy and we did not see that it is a false-positive

Over 1,000+ domains on Bizland have been Malware-related


Over 1,000 Endurance-related domains have been flagged with the following warning16:
All domains/IPs listed on this website should be treated with extreme caution. Some of them
will automatically infect your computer.
Bulk Injection Hack infects ~20,000 Endurance-related Websites
Endurances websites, in yet another example of how they seem more vulnerable than websites hosted
elsewhere, accounted for 57% of compromised websites17:
During the first week of September 2010, the number of affected websites ranged from 22,000
to about 39,000 depending on the day. According to the data collected by Websense, BlueHost
was the most affected hosting company and accounted for 38% of compromised websites. It
was followed by DreamHost with 28%. BizLand and Go Daddy acquired the third and fourth
spot with 19% and 12% respectively.

Page 35 of 61

Endurance is a Reseller of Tucows, Designated as Notorious by the US


Endurance is a reseller of Tucows according to one of Endurance VPs comments 18:
Mitch Haber, VP of Product Management at The Endurance International Group, an OpenSRS
reseller, offered his congratulations. OpenSRS is a true partner. Their platform is solid and their
support team is among the best in the industry. They have played a key role in our success and
we look forward to working with them toward the next 10 million domains under management.
The US trade office designated Tucows in its annual notorious markets list as an example of concern
about some registrars not taking action to block or suspend sites selling illegal goods.19
And its not just the US government, The Japanese government requested suspension of a company
selling illegal unapproved drugs, yet the company continued operating under a Tucows domain
illegally.20

Page 36 of 61

Underinvestment leads to Service Outages and High Churn


Endurance makes the following claims about its business 1:

CEO Hari Ravichandran says2:


Our most powerful channel is customer advocacy and word of mouth. About 45% of new
subscribers added to the Endurance platform find us through word of mouth, which does not
offers any marketing dollars. We accomplish this by focusing on delivering a superior solution,
fueled by our cloud enablement platform, and great customer service.
Gotham City Research has found that customers disagree with the above representations. In fact, we
believe Endurance Internationals business is actually characterized by the following qualities:

Low quality products & services, exacerbated by underinvesting in its business.


Low quality customer & technical support.
High churn business, and attempts to conceal its true churn by re-defining churn.
High customer cannibalization.
Endurances acquired companies deteriorate, post-acquisition.

Page 37 of 61

Our opinions are supported by the following findings:

Very low R&D spending underinvests in its core infrastructure (e.g. servers)
Service outages, frequent service disruptions
Poor customer reviews with specific and detailed grievances.
EIGI twists the definition of churn/retention to the point that the disclosures resemble lies.
An industry expert explicitly states EIGIs churn/retention definition/framework is not the
industry common practice, while using industry terminology. Their businesses suffers from the
same issues other hosters suffer.3
Documented examples of cannibalism

Endurance Underinvests in Infrastructure so It Can Squeeze Out as Much as Possible from Customers
In the prior section, we indicated how Endurances suspect practices have attracted terrorist-related and
spam/malware-related subscribers. We find that EIGIs practices not only contribute to harming the
general public, it also profits at its customers expense.
Endurance spends 60-80% less per customer on infrastructure, than Godaddy does4:

R&D Spending per Subscriber Comparison


2012

Godaddy
EIGI
variance

2013

2014

$17.14 $17.95 $20.02


$4.28
$6.63
$3.89
(75.0%) (63.1%) (80.6%)

Endurances R&D spending per revenue dollar is even low compared to the much larger Salsesforce.com,
which is seen as a sales heavy organization in the tech world.5
We use the words R&D and infrastructure synonymously, as both Godaddy and Endurance have
comparable definitions. Here is EIGIs R&D definition i.e. Engineering and Development Costs:
Engineering and development costs incurred in the development and maintenance of the
Companys technology infrastructure.
Our engineering and development activity is focused on enhancing our systems, developing and
expanding product and service offerings, and integrating technology capabilities from our
acquisitions.

Page 38 of 61

Godaddys stock-based compensation to R&D employees exceeds EIGIs by 10x:


EIGI

Godaddy

Some might assume that EIGIs R&D efficiency is greater than Godaddys. However, that fails to explain a
clear pattern of service disruptions and consistent post-acquisition customer complaints
How valuable is a web hosting company with frequent (and worsening) service outages?
Endurance companies experienced at least 4 large-scale service outages last year, and they seem to be
worsening with timing6:
Service Outages are Worsening

Date

Duration
Aug-13 24 hours of downtime
Dec-13 3 days of downtime

Apr-14 24 hours of downtime


May-14 9 hours of downtime
Oct-14 5 days of downtime

EIGI seems to have trouble monitoring outages (it seems the company is not even aware until customers
complain)7:
The official Twitter accounts for BlueHost and HostGator at first sent out messages suggesting
that the hosts were not aware of any outages, but shortly before 3 p.m. Tuesday, BlueHost's
official Twitter account tweeted the following announcement: "FYI we're experiencing a
Page 39 of 61

temporary network issue with our data center that's affecting some customers. If that's you stay
tuned for updates!" HostGator's official Twitter account tweeted a similar message out around
the same time, alerting users to the fact that the site was aware of the service outage and was
working to address it.
The outage led a number of BlueHost and HostGator customers to send tweets of frustration to
the accounts for the hosting services.
"Really @bluehostsupport @bluehost? You have my website down (& phone support broken) on
the BIGGEST fundraing day of the year? Unacceptable," @tweeted @AimeeCustis.
"been an hour+ and we're still down. you gonna explain yourselves, gator?? we want 2014 for
FREE.@HGSupport @hostgator #hategator," tweeted @Lazytravelers.
Some Twitter users even threatened to cancel their accounts, including @JohnTVokc: "New Years
Resolution for 2014 - Find a much more reliable host for my dedicated server account.
@hostgatorcontinues to disappoint."
The tagline on EIG's Google search listing states that "Endurance International empowers the
spirit of the entrepreneur with better web solutions for better success," but Tuesday's was at
least the second major outage its customers endured in 2013, as thewhir.com reports that
HostGator, BlueHost and other EIG services went down for an extended period of time in August.

The following twitter exchange (on the next page) reveals a few qualities we believe are companywide8

Service outages and product quality have worsened with time.


Endurance International has destroyed formerly average and quality hosting companies. Once
acquired, a formerly good company becomes a bad company, and an average one becomes a
terrible one.
Endurance engages in deceptive (and at times) false advertising.

Page 40 of 61

Page 41 of 61

Deceptive Marketing and False Advertising


The above exchange reveals what appears to be false advertising on the part of a small orange:

Customer Reviews are Poor


Customer reviews are so poor, detailed, and descriptive, weve decided to summarize the main
grievances, highlight a few complaints, and leave the rest for later. Weve tended to find complaints
even when we were not looking for them. A recent former Hostgator customer assessment summarizes
some of the common complaints (wrote the following in January 2015):9
I thought I'd share my recent experience after moving from Hostgator to Stablehost two weeks
ago. I own a (locally) popular Wordpress blog and faced some serious issues with the Hostgator
baby croc package, which was my host of choice for the past two years.
These included, but were not limited to:
Security issues - most notably a rogue Hostgator user on my server using mod_userdir to
install a phishing script on mydomain.com/~hackername. Hostgator later apologized
and blocked mod_userdir after I had to specifically request it (I was amazed that they
don't do it by default!?)
Performance issues - as my traffic grew, I began receiving constant CPU resource email
nagging, resulting in frequent temporary account restrictions.
Generally unprofessional and SLOW support

Page 42 of 61

Statistically significant sample of Complaints


We encourage you to evaluate these and other customer reviews:

49 comments, nearly all complaining about outage More Downtime for HostGator and BlueHost
Customers as Router Issues Plague Utah Data Center http://www.thewhir.com/web-hostingnews/downtime-hostgator-bluehost-customers-router-issues-plague-utah-data-center
23 very negative reviews about Homestead (Google homestead hosting and you get to
http://www.cnet.com/products/homestead-web-host/user-reviews/
Bluehost 6 pages of reviews. Reviews since 2014 are terrible, reviews in 2013 were mixed,
and
reviews
up
to
2012
were
excellent.
https://www.webhostinghero.com/reviews/bluehost/2/#listing
Hostmonster 62 reviews most are terrible http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hostingreviews/hostmonster/ Dotser all 19 reviews are poor http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/dotster/
Bluehost
user
ratings
far
worse
than
the
experts
rating

http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/bluehost/
Hostgator On yelp 1.5 stars out of 5 25 reviews: http://yelp.com/biz/hostgator-houston-3
15 negative comments about Hostgator and other Endurance companies
http://www.linux-depot.com/non-endurance-international-group-eig-hosting/
hostgator
sucksany
alternative

one
of
many
similar
threads
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?page=2&t=1326038#postcount9389876&ut
m_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The before and after Endurance acquires summary10:


And both Bluehost and Hostgator are owned by Endurance International Group. Both hosts used
to have a reputation of being excellent before EIG bought them out. Both hosts are now the
subject of regular complaints (mainly overcrowded and slow servers, and unresponsive support
that doesn't support) on a number of forums specialising in web hosting and web mastering.
Customer Confusion and Customer Cannibalism
EIGIs seemingly deliberate strategy of not building a brand leads to both intended and unintended
consequences. One of the intended consequences is best described as follows11:
The separate branding on the part of Endurance means that customers arent aware that many
of these properties operate on the same platform. The outage resulted in several major brands
and several million websites knocked out, many of whom probably didnt realize that they were
Endurance customers.

Page 43 of 61

Endurance probably hopes that customer confusion leads customers to simply leave one Endurance
company for another one. The problem with this strategy, and the unintended consequences:

Long-term brand erosion, leading to higher churn (or worst case, discontinuing a brand).
Dilutive cannibalism the example in the next page shows how an affiliate marketer of A Small
Orange (ASO an EIGI company), bad-mouths Hostgator (an EIGI company). Hostgator is a
much bigger company versus ASO, so cannibalism seems counterproductive:

The above Tweet concurrently badmouths Hostgator whilst complimenting ASO. IT was RT-ed 20x
EIGIs True Churn is Very High Revenue not as stable as Portrayed
EIGI discloses a Monthly Recurring Revenue Retention Rate of 99%.12

Page 44 of 61

The implied churn rate of 1% (since EIGI does not disclose churn), implies the company has industry leading churn:

Monthly Churn
GDDY
1.3%
WWWW
1.0%
WIX
2.0%
EIGI Undisclosed

What is Endurances secret sauce? An industry veteran does not understand how Endurance reports such low churn,
given that some of its more high profile subsidiaries suffered from higher churn, EIGI acquired them13:

I closely watched Endurance presentations, and their claim of 1% Churn got my attention. They
have repeated that claim on their Q4-2013 earnings call while defining the MRR retention at 99%.
They have kept that statement in their Q1-2014 results.
Out of the over 50+ companies that were bought over the past years, there are a few which were
players in the Hosting market for many years and were struggling with churn throughout those
years. Included among them are: HostCentric, Hostmonster, Bizland, homestead, domain.com,
Ehost, ApolloHosting [these are all Endurance subsidiaries].
I wondered what the Endurance team did in order to reduce the industry-inherited churn in these
companies.
After analyzing EIGIs numbers more carefully, he concluded that EIGIs figures are not consistent with industry
norms:

The Endurance guys used in their analysis a model which is not the industry common practice,
while using industry terminology.
Their businesses suffers from the same issues other hosters suffer, and most probably at the
same level.
In summary, Churn has always been a key performance indicator of a Hosting company. No
hosting company can avoid it, and they all continue to struggle to minimize it.
CEO Ravichandrans explanation of churn does not make sense

EIGIs CEO has claimed that:14


85% to sometimes it's higher than 90% of the subscriber churn that happens is businesses just
going out of business. So this is off the churn number, 85% to 90% would be people going out
of business.
So if we are to trust Ravichandran and EIGI, churn is %1 per month, and 85%-90% of that is from people
going out of business. Yet US statistics regarding business survival consistently shows that businesses
Page 45 of 61

closure (due to failure or voluntary closure) within the first year has been a remarkably steady 20-25%
the 1994-2010 period15:

Ravichandrans explanation would imply that new customers hosting on EIGI brands only close shop at a rate of
10%-11%, significantly less than the 20-26% historical rate. We dont think thats the case, especially coupled with
the significant service outages, customer complaints, integration issues, and other problems weve discussed in prior
sections.
EIGIs Distorted ARPS Figures Contributes to a Distorted Churn
Recall how Endurance was magically able to transform a -13% decline in ARPU to a +11% improvement in 2014.
Since churn requires accurate, relevant, and consistent disclosures of customer counts, a distorted ARPU implies a
distorted churn.

Page 46 of 61

40%-100%+ of Profits are Suspect: Putting it all Together


Web hosting is a Competitive Business
Web hosting is a commoditized industry with low barriers to entry, low ARPU, high customer churn, and
formidable competition. Additionally, Endurances core markets are saturated, as the 4 largest players
account for over 85% of the core markets1:

Recent Subscriber #s
GDDY
12.7
EIGI
4.1
WWWW
3.3
WIX
1.2
TOTAL
21.3
Core Markets
25.0
as % of Core
85%

On a reported Adjusted EBITDA basis (which we believe is really EBITDA before costs) EIGI looks
profitable & far more profitable than its peers:

ADJUSTED EBITDA MARGIN - EIGI vs PEERS


2012
2013
2014
GDDY
19.1%
17.4%
19.6%
WWWW
35.5%
31.1%
29.8%
EIGI
45.8%
40.0%
37.4%
Blink had Industry-leading profitability as well (driven by suspect business practices):
Blinkx's Revenue per Employee Surpassed Peers
revenue per
Employees Revenue
employee
RocketFuel
552
$240
$434,783
YuMe
357
$157
$439,776
Tremor
287
$148
$515,679
Criteo
452
$240
$530,973
Blinkx
265
$247
$932,830

Page 47 of 61

Competition and commoditization leads some companies to innovate and others to cut corners.
Gotham City Research believes Endurances behaviors are more consistent with the latter (following in
the footsteps of Blinkx). The below-mentioned explains some of EIGIs higher Adj. EBITDA vs peers:

Boost revenue by either willfully ignoring or outright attracting suspect (but highly profitable)
accounts, e.g. malware/spam-related. Hosting terrorist-websites and other black-listed sites are
symptomatic of aggressive profits at any cost practices.
Cut costs by squeezing as much out of customers as possible Slash infrastructure spending and
customer support-related spending, leading to service outages, slow speeds, and poor customer
service.

Yet EIGI looks far worse than its peers on a cash flow, gross margin, and revenue per employee bases:

EIGI Free Cash Flow vs Peers


2012
2013
2014
$ in 000s
$46,745 ($55,153)
$73,249
GDDY
$62,788 $88,082
$82,794
WWWW
($306,652) ($94,294) ($226,156)
EIGI
2014 REVENUE PER EMPLOYEE
Revenue Employees Revenue per employee
GDDY $1,387,262
4,908
$282,653
WWWW $543,937
2,100
$259,018
EIG $629,845
2,503
$251,636

GROSS MARGIN - EIGI vs PEERS


2012
2013
GDDY
52.8%
58.1%
WWWW
60.7%
65.1%
WIX
78.9%
81.0%
EIGI - reported
18.8%
32.7%
EIGI - comparable
49.0%
53.1%

2014
62.6%
64.7%
81.6%
39.4%
55.7%

The following qualities would explain the above:

Endurances ARPU is declining and organic growth is low/mid single-digits.


Churn is very high, and the company tinkers with its subscriber definition to mask this.
Directi/international revenue are suspect. The company is desperate for any top-line growth.
Sales and marketing spend per revenue is relatively high, to compensate for high churn.
The company acquires competitors aggressively, slash and burn, and report suspect profits In
order to mask the variance between cash flow and Adjusted EBITDA.

Something else must contribute to the wide variance between EIGIs Adjusted EBITDA & FCF
Page 48 of 61

Cash collected & cash spent provides insight to an investor to gauge the overall health of EIGI
EIGI includes the following definition/description of Adjusted EBITDA, and states the importance of
emphasizing cash-in and cash-out to properly gauge its health2:

Endurances rhetoric seems sound except EIGIs calculation of Adjusted EBITDA adds back highly
relevant cash spent, pretending as if cash spent does not matter (EIGIs words & actions contradict):

EIGI Adjusted EBITDA Overstated 40%-100%+ Once Adjusted EBITDA is Standardized


We believe EIGIs Adjusted EBITDA does not help investors gauge the health of its business. We also
believe EIGIs true adjusted EBITDA looks more like the following, after one actually factors in both cash
collected and cash spent, not just cash collected:

Adjusted EBITDA - EIGI's Perspective vs Standardized


$ in 1,000s
2012
2013

2014

Adjusted EBITDA - EIGI Perspective $ 133,664 $ 207,931 $ 235,618

(32,767) (45,036)
(4,787)
(294) (45,594) (19,927)
Changes in ST + LT Deferred Revenue (124,257) (62,125)
(75,923)
Adjusted EBITDA - Standardized $ (23,654) $ 55,176 $ 134,981
Overstatement (117.7%)
(73.5%)
(42.7%)
Transaction expenses and charges

Integration and restructuring expenses

Page 49 of 61

Transaction expenses and charges and Integration and restructuring expenses are cash costs
Endurance is a roll-up, and has a long and consistent history of M&A since 2002 (13 years ago) as the
article titled Bizland [Endurances former name] Growing Through Acquisitions clearly demonstrates3.
Because on-going acquisitions has been core to Endurances DNA, these cash expenses have been
normal and recurring, and should be added back.
Endurances peer companies WWWW and GDDY are far more conservative in adding back these
other adjustments to Adj. EBITDA (in fact, Godaddys other adjustments actually reduces Adj. EBITDA) 4:

Adjusted EBITDA Adjustments vs Peers


$ in mms
2012
2013
2014
GDDY
($28.7)
$0.4
($16.5)
WWWW
$3.5
$1.7
$2.7
EIGI
$12.4
$90.6
$24.7

Deferred revenue adjustments incorrect given accounting irregularities, no refund reserve disclosures
Although adding back deferred revenue to Adjusted EBITDA is standard for publicly-traded web hosting
companies, we believe the deferred revenue add-backs are improper for Endurance specifically because:

EIGIs Total customer, ARPU, and Churn definitions are not consistent with peers (as
discussed).
True churn is higher than EIGI reports. Higher churn leads to higher refunds which reduces
deferred revenue (and therefore, future revenues).
EIGI does not disclose its refund reserves, despite discussing its importance. The concern is that
deferred revenue balances are inaccurate.
Weve identified accounting irregularities in EIGIs deferred revenue balances.

Refunds are Important yet EIGI Does not disclose refunds


Refunds are clearly important to EIGI5:
We may not have adequate reserves in the event that our historical levels of refunds increase,
which could adversely affect our liquidity and profitability.
Yet the company does not disclose refunds, or refund reserves. Given the service outages experienced
by Endurances customers in 2013, 2014, 2015, this seems highly suspect.
Service Outages are Worsening

Date

Duration
Aug-13 24 hours of downtime
Dec-13 3 days of downtime
Apr-14 24 hours of downtime

May-14 9 hours of downtime


Oct-14 5 days of downtime

Page 50 of 61

Deferred Revenue Irregularities


Like many other Endurance-related figures, there are accounting irregularities in deferred revenue:

Unexplained Deferred Revenue Irregularities


$ in 1,000s
2012
2013
Changes in ST deferred revenue
$102,121
$43,118
Changes in LT deferred revenue
$22,136
$19,007
Changes in deferred revenue - Calculated
$124,257
$62,125
$104,069
$51,047
Changes in deferred revenue - reported
Unexplained difference
$20,188
$11,078

2014
$65,371
$10,552
$75,923
$67,654

$8,269

Correspondence with the SEC: Feeling the Pressure


The Securities and Exchange and Commission recently questioned EIGIs pro forma Free Cash Flow and
Unlevered Free Cash disclosures. Rather than defending its practices (though it does offer a token
rebuttal), the Company folded6:
The Company will remove FCF and UFCF from its future reports on Forms 10-Q and 10-K filed
with the Commission.
The Company no longer discloses those pro forma figures in its 10K. However, it continued disclosing
them in its earnings releases.

Page 51 of 61

Valuation: Interest Expense Exceeds Normalized Adj. EBITDA


Normalized EBITDA Unable to cover Interest Expense, Shares Approach $0.00 per share
Endurance has relied on related parties (which are substantially itself) and under-invested in its core
infrastructure for years. EIGIs acquisition spree and accounting shenanigans have concealed customer
churn and inflated revenue and ARPU growth. If Endurances R&D spending were to simply converge to
Godaddys level of R&D (as a percentage of revenue), in order to play catch-up and remove the effects
of, the Company will have trouble servicing its debt1:
Normalized EBITDA - Unable to Cover Interest Expense
$ in 1,000s
2012
2013
Adjusted EBITDA - Standardized
($23,654)
$55,176
Normalized Infrastructure spend
($42,455)
($72,468)
Normalized Adjusted EBITDA
$18,801
$127,644
Interest Expense

($126,165)

($98,449)

2014
$134,981
($95,972)
$39,009
($57,414)

We believe the company will be forced to either:

Play catch-up on infrastructure spend (to reduce further service outages)


Pay the price of high churn, suffering significant declines in organic revenue.

In either scenario, the Companys ability to service debt is a near-term risk factor. As a result, we believe
the shares will approach $0.00 per share.
Absent Debt, the Shares See 80+% Downside
If we were to assume Endurance had zero debt on its balance sheet, EIGI stock faces 80%+ downside:

EIGIs ARPU is declining Declining ARPU tends to mean game over for a companys stock. See
Blackberry as an example.
EIGI trades at higher multiples compared against the true industry leader, GDDY
WWWW seems like the most appropriate comparable company:
WWWW trades at ~10x adj EBITDA, and 10x Free cash flow WWWWs adj EBITDA and
free cash flow figures are cleaner than EIGIs (WWWW also actually generates FCF).
EIGIs suspect accounting and business practices resemble WWWW. We think EIGIs
practices are worse, as detailed in this report.
EIGI is worth $2.98 per share, once it trades in-line with WWWW, at 10x Adj. EBITDA
EIGI's Value per Share Calculation
EBITDA Multiple
10.0x
Normalized Adjusted EBITDA
$39,009
Fully Diluted Shares
131,000
Equity value per share
$2.98
Market value per share
$21.94
Upside/(Downside)
(86.4%)

Page 52 of 61

The Ravichandran Ties that Blind


Dr. V. Ravichandran

CEO of Diya Systems


Majority owner of Tregaron
FATHER of EIGI CEO

Indira Ravichandran

Wife of Dr. V. Ravichandran


Majority owner of Tregaron
Mother of EIGI CEO

Tregaron India Holdings

Tregaron india holdings address https://www.google.com/maps/@38.301045,85.57095,3a,75y,167.7h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sBaUQuRSCN8NWike2AO7q0g!2e0


Glowtouch is Tregaron
https://app.sos.ky.gov/ftshow/(S(ymujrwwoiood4clctf4qez4h))/default.aspx?path=ftsearch&id=
0715135&ct=06&cs=99999

Page 53 of 61

VIDYA RAVICHANDRAN sister of EIGI CEO


4011 WHITEBLOSSOM ESTATES COURT
LOUISVILLE, KY 40241

Tregaron India Holdings and Glowtouch share a common address

GlowTouch Technologies
The Summit II
4360 Brownsboro Rd.
Suite 200
Louisville, KY 40207
Same address (same suite) as glowtech http://www.manta.com/c/mb5826b/tregaron-indiaholdings-llc
http://www.glowtouch.com/contact/
Glowtouch is diya http://company.monsterindia.com/diyasmin/
Glowtouch and and eig both invested in by a tregaron capital
http://www.tregaroncapital.com/recent_news.htm

Diya Systems
o Seems to use EIGI services, per https://who.is/whois/diya.net
o Diya Systems is a fully owned subsidiary of GlowTouch Technologies
http://www.diya.net/aboutus/companies
Same phone number as glowtech contact
The Summit II

Employee reviews are terrible:


http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Diya-Systems-Reviews-E641824.htm

Page 54 of 61

Source: http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/glowtouch-technologies-pvt-ltd-c50718.html

Another employee, Shruthi Shetty uses Endurance/Glowtouch interchangeably:


http://people.bayt.com/shruthi-shetty-14189325/

Page 55 of 61

Directi Revenue Does Not Reconcile


We gathered all Indian filings for all the Directi and related entities, and attempted to reconcile EIGIs
disclosed revenue with the sum of all the Indian entities. They did not reconcile as already discussed.

Directi Revenue Reconcilation


Low

directi internet solutions pvt ltd 1,039,666,986


91,272,462
directi web services pvt ltd
757,256
directi services pvt ltd
0
Directi Web Technology Pvt Ltd
484,358
PDR DOMAINS SOLUTIONS PVT LTD
16,263,120
Big Rock Solutions
TOTAL REVENUE ( in INR) 1,148,444,182
USD INR exchange rate
0.017
in USD
$19,523,551
ADJUSTED REVENUE
$48,500,000
ADJUSTED REVENUE
$31,300,000

High
277,126,173
50,774,780
1,726,063
411,314,905
502,555
2,621,188
744,065,664

0.0162
$12,053,864
$48,500,000
$29,000,000

Notes:

We used 2013 and 2014 year figures


Because EIGIs reported Directi revenue do not reconcile, we used both numbers as part of the
low and high analysis

Page 56 of 61

Organic Growth Calculations


2013 Organic Growth

EIGI 2013 Organic Growth Calculation


2012
$ in 1,000s

2013

GAAP Revenue $292,156 $520,296


Purchase accounting adjustment
Homestead/Homegator/Other

$64,123

$7,311

$90,150 $245,800

Organic Revenue $266,129 $281,807


Organic Growth
5.9%

Notes:

We add back the purchase accounting adjustment to GAAP revenue


We exclude the Homestead/Homegator/Other revenue (combination of disclosed and
estimated values) from EIGIs GAAP revenue

2014 Organic growth

EIGI 2014 Organic Growth Calculation


2013
$ in 1,000s
$520,296
GAAP revenue
$528,119
adjusted revenue
Directi
Arvixe, BuyDomains, & Webzai
Other acquisitions
Organic Revenue
Organic Growth

2014
$629,845
$651,945
($48,500)
($14,600)
($31,000)

$557,845
5.6%

We use 2014 adjusted Directi revenue as provided by the 10K 2014


Other acquisitions includes the following (adjusted for date of acquisition completion):
Radix estimate of $28.4 million (the average gLTD brings in 28.4 million per launch,
Radix launched three gLTDs in June 2014).
Buydomains owns 950,000 domain names. Domain name resellers typically sell 2% of
inventory per year. We assume an avg selling price of $1,200-$1,500 per domain.
Arvix disclosed revenue for 2013 = $ 12 million, we conservatively assume revenues
grew to $14 million in 2014.
Webzai , we estimate $4.75 million in revenue

Page 57 of 61

End Notes
Introduction
1. GDDY, WWWW, and EIGI SEC filings
2. GCR Investigation
EIGI Uses Related Parties (Itself?) to Inflate Earnings
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.

GDDY, WWWW, and EIGI SEC filings


EIGI Investor Presentation
EIGI proxy filings, 10Ks, and IPO filings
EIGI IPO filing exhibit
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1237746/000119312513361255/d555515dex1020.ht
m
Sam Antar, Former CFO of Crazy Eddies
Glowtouch Revenue information: http://www.inc.com/profile/glowtouch-technologies
Glowtouch website
http://www.hostgator.in/contact
Diya website
http://who.is/domain-history/glowtouch.com
https://who.is/whois/diya.net
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ahujavivek
EIGI quarterly releases, and sell side estimates
EIGI filings
GDDY, WWWW, and EIGI SEC filings
GCR due diligence

30%-67% of Directis Revenues are Suspect


1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

EIGI Investor presentation


EIGI 10K 2014
EIGI Q4 2014 earnings call
GDDY IPO filing
EIGI proxy filings
EIGI 10K 2014

Page 58 of 61

7. directi internet solutions pvt ltd, directi web services pvt ltd, directi services pvt ltd, Directi Web
Technology Pvt Ltd, PDR DOMAINS SOLUTIONS PVT LTD, Big Rock Solutions Indian filings with
the Ministry of Corporate of Affairs
8. directi.com , recent media coverage

EIGIs undisclosed U.A.E. subsidiary and its false credentials


1. EIGI 10K 2014
2. https://gacweb.icann.org/download/attachments/27131927/RadixReg-US31.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1353452704000&api=v2
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84149.html
3. http://www.hfza.ae/en-us/directory.aspx
4. http://www.thedomains.com/2012/09/27/lawyers-attack-directi-radix-new-gtld-applicationsthey-should-be-disqualified/
5. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/11/15/UAE-formally-blacklists-82groups-as-terrorist-.html
6. http://who.is/whois/https://www.muslimamericansociety.org

Average Revenue per Subscriber is down -13%, Not Up +11%


1. EIGI 10Ks
2. EIGI, GDDY, WWWW SEC filings
3. Directi customer count Source:
http://www.lifesize.com/~/media/Documents/Case%20Studies/Companies%20A%20Through%
20L/Directi%20Case%20Study%20EN.ashx
EIGI 10Ks
4. EIGI 10Ks, 10`Qs, and earnings releases.
5. WWWW 10K 2014
6. EIGI earnings calls
7. EIGI IPO filings
Suspect Customers: Terrorism & Malware-related
1. GDDY and EIGI SEC filings
2. Syrian Electronic Army website
https://twitter.com/Official_SEA16/status/582381417323048960
https://twitter.com/Official_SEA16/with_replies
http://www.zone-h.org/mirror/id/23960546?zh=1
3. https://who.is/whois/https://islam-army.com
4. Syrian Electronic Army website
Page 59 of 61

5. https://www.hackread.com/syrian-electronic-army-hacks-bluehost-hostgator-for-hostingterrorist-websites/
6. Specially
Designated
Nationals
List
(SDN)
http://www.treasury.gov/resourcecenter/sanctions/SDN-List/Pages/default.aspx
7. EIGI 10K 2014
8. http://who.is/domain-history/kahanetzadak.com
9. EIGI 10K 2014
10. Terrorism in Cyberspace: The Next Generation
11. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/27/unwittingly_hosting_terror/?page=f
ull
12. The respect websites terms of service
13. http://rss.uribl.com/nic/
14. https://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11184
15. Source: http://cyberwarzone.com/malicious-history-of-66-96-147-66/
16. http://www.malwareurl.com/ns_listing.php?as=AS29873
17. https://wpsecuritylock.com/godaddy-other-network-providers-bulk-injection-hack/
18. http://www.tucows.com/domain-registrar-tucows-inc-reaches-milestone-10000000-domainsunder-management/
19. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/05/us-usa-trade-piracy-idUSKBN0M121F20150305
20. http://blog.legitscript.com/2015/01/twitter-spat-russian-rogue-internet-pharmacy-operator/
Underinvestment leads to Service Outages and High Churn
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

EIGI Investor Presentation


EIGI earnings call
http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/07/endurance-new-way-measure-churn/
GDDY and EIGI filings
CRM SEC filings
GCR due diligence
HostGator & BlueHost Are Down Due To EIG Outage
Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/hostgator-bluehost-are-down-due-eig-outage-1523952

8.
9.
10.
11.

https://twitter.com/BrittMalka/with_replies
Source: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1451220
Source: https://www.drupal.org/node/2407073
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/08/05/how-did-the-failure-of-networkswitches-at-a-little-known-data-center-in-provo-utah-knock-four-major-services-and-millionsof-web-pages-offline/
12. EIGI Investor Presentation, EIGI, GDDY, WIX, WWWW filings
13. http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/07/endurance-new-way-measure-churn/
14. Q1 2014 earnings call

Page 60 of 61

15. Business failure Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140915223641-170128193-whatare-the-real-small-business-survival-rates

40%-100%+ of Profits are Suspect: Putting it all Together


1. EIGI Investor Presentation, and WWWW, GDDY, EIGI SEC filings.
2. EIGI 10K
3. Bizland rollup strategy:
http://www.indianewengland.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&m
od=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=EE1BC
DFDFC484619A8FF862ED5FA696A&AudID=FB6219837BDE4E39877F2E53436E947B
4. GDDY, WWWW, and GDDY SEC filings
5. EIGI 10K
6. SEC Correspondence letter

Valuation: Interest Expense Exceeds Normalized Adj. EBITDA


1. EIGI, GDDY SEC filings

Page 61 of 61

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