From prweb, still unconfirmed:
Corporation and LLC formation company acquires toll free number 1-800-COMPANY for $10 million.
(PRWEB) May 9, 2008 — The toll free number, 1-800-COMPANY, was acquired today by a document filing company that forms corporations, LLCs and trusts for $10 million. The associated website that promotes the company’s services, www.1800company.com, was recently launched as well.
The acquiring party is associated with Companies Incorporated (www.companiesinc.com) a corporation and LLC formation service that started business in 1977. The toll free number and website will be operated under newly formed 1-800-COMPANY, LLLP based in Santa Clarita, Calif. Santa Clarita touches the northern border of Los Angeles. 1-800-COMPANY, LLLP will be managed by Lincoln International Services, Inc. established in 1908. The 1908 company was acquired from a federal attorney who recently retired from the company formation business.
“We are excited about the new brand,” says CEO Kevin Wessell. “1-800-COMPANY® is a memorable brand name that, promoted properly, will breed in instant recognition and will allow us to serve more customers.”
Mr. Wessell adds, “We acquired the company that holds the toll free number along with an associated domain name and the trademark. Then we acquired additional relevant domain names. Now we have all pieces of the puzzle in place. Just to clarify,” Wessell adds, “the larger transaction was between two of our companies for tax reasons and to set a value on the brand. So, we acquired the individual pieces from various outside parties for a hefty sum but a bit less than the numbers that are being tossed about in the media. We see a tremendous growth of the enterprise with the addition of this valuable new brand.”
MacRumors.com is reporting a rumor that Apple is the new owner of the domain name Me.com. It’s unclear why the company purchased the domain name, but rumors center around it possibly being used as a rebranding of the popular .mac services. The speculation was first started by John Gruber at DaringFireball.net when he noticed that the domain name was using MarkMonitor services. MarkMonitor.com is a company that many large corporations, including Apple, use to manage their domain names. The initial rumor was shortly followed up by a MacRumors reader who pointed out that the Netcraft page lists, Kenneth Eddings, an Apple employee as the DNS administrator.