Vinyl Group reveals it is spending $1.6m buying a domain from a shareholder

Sep 29, 2025

Welcome to an end-of day update from Unmade. Today: loss-making entertainment industry player Vinyl Group buys a $1.6m domain.

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Vinyl Group spends $1.6m on ‘prudent step’ of buying domain

Vinyl Group has outlaid $1.6m on the url vinyl.com

Music publishing and platforms player Vinyl Group today told the ASX that it will issue $2m worth of stock to one of its major shareholders to get ownership of a high value domain.

Vinyl Group has already been using the domain vinyl.com as a music store, but the domain and trademark is actually owned by shareholder Songtradr.

In exchange for handing over ownership, Songtradr will receive $1.6m more shares in Vinyl Group, plus a further $370,000 worth of shares that it was previously owed by converting debt to equity.

Songtradr is the second biggest shareholder in Vinyl Group, owning 16.7% of the company at the end of the last financial year. The biggest shareholder in Vinyl, with a 40.1% stake, is Richard White’s Realwise Group Holdings. White is also an investor in Songtradr.

While the $1.6m price tag for vinyl.com is steep, it’s by no means a record price for a domain. According to Wikipedia, Voice.com sold for $30m in 2019 while there are around 50 domains that have sold for more than $3m. Meanwhile, GoDaddy is currently offering the domain vinyl.store for a somewhat more modest $504.

In a press release, Vinyl Group’s CEO Josh Simons said the deal would “consolidate ownership of strategic assets”. He added that the deal with Songtradr was “a prudent step that enhances shareholder value.”

In August, Vinyl Group revealed that it made an EBITDA loss of $10m in the last financial year. Earlier this month, the company made 10% of its staff redundant as it attempts to edge towards profitability by the end of the year.

Unmade Index starts the week with a surge

The Unmade Index had a strong start to the week driven by Nine jumping by 3.5%, taking the company’s market capitalisation back above $1.9bn for the first time since the sale of Domain.

On a generally good day of trading for the broadcasters, ARN Media was up 2.1% and Southern Cross Austereo grew by 0.6%.

Vinyl Group’s share price rose by 1.1% to a market capitalisation of $122m.

The only stocks to fall were on-the-block classifieds player Gumtree which lost 2.5% and Pureprofile which finished the day down by 4.6% after earlier being off by nearly 10%.