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Croatian Plus Hosting went IPO on AIM Italia – the Italian stock exchange – as part of the Dominion Hosting Holding (DHH). DHH, comprised of five international hosting brands from Italy, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia, sold 29.57% of company shares for 4.2 million euro. The hosting group has a 14,2 million euro market cap, which translates to more than 100 million kuna.
Plus Hosting, founded in Pula, is considered as one of the leading hosting service providers coming from Croatia. As of recently, Plus Hosting became part of DHH and joined the other four members of the group: Serbian Plus Hosting d.o.o., Slovenian Domenca and Domovanje and Italian TopHost. DHH now counts over 90,000 users and more than 200,000 domains across four countries. With the large customer base and the 4,2 million euro from the recent IPO, DHH is leading its way towards becoming one of the key players on the Balkan, and the European, web hosting scene.
According to Giandomenico Sica, co-founder and President of DHH: “We are really proud of what we achieved so far. We founded DHH exactly one year ago and we celebrate our first birthday as a publicly listed company on the Italian Stock Exchange. During this year we have built a pocket multinational company with over 90.000 customers and an international presence in Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. Our goal is to become the leader in the emerging markets of Europe, markets that are one step behind the most mature countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, but that exactly for this reason are experimenting an uncommon – in the sense of uncommonly positive – growth trend in the adoption of internet technology, services and applications. Thanks to the capital we raised through this IPO process, we can now accelerate the development of our group, expanding our presence in other countries and our focus from pure web hosting services towards ‘software as a service’ products.”
Uros Cimzar, director and co-founder of DHH, sees the successful public offering of DHH as an indicator of the quality that the group and its member brands have to offer. He also emphasizes the importance of managing to secure over 4 million euro, exceeding the targeted 3 million, in the middle of a risky investment climate following Brexit. According to Cimzar, the stock exchange listing brings capital, but also adds to the company credibility, which is even more important than money, as he states for Netokracija.
What does this mean for local brands, such as Croatian Plus Hosting?
DHH will continue to grow its position in the region through M&As in near future, especially by acquiring mature hosting providers. In turn, being part of a large group brings benefits to each member company. Zvonimir Gembec, co-founder and CEO of Croatian Plus Hosting, particularly points out the benefits in terms of economy of scale and strategic partnerships, such as the one with PayPal. Local brands also recognize the advantage of having the opportunity to be local market leaders in their countries, while taking part in a powerful regional group that provides solid support in outperforming competition. The 4.2 million euro from the IPO will be used to improve the customer support and offer additional services.
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