CNIC.L Regulatory News (CNIC)

CentralNic Group plc

("CentralNic")

UKCI Awards Contract for .ART to CentralNic

CentralNic Group plc (AIM:CNIC), the Internet platform business which derives revenues from the global sale of domain names, is pleased to announce that it has contracted with UK Creative Ideas Limited ("UKCI"), the rights holder for the new Top-Level Domain ("TLD") .ART, to be its exclusive registry service provider. .ART will be introduced in a staged launch over the next twelve months, providing the art community and the $68 billion art market with its own exclusive designation on the Internet. With the online art market growing 24% over the past year, .ART domain names will make it easier for consumers and search engines to distinguish art-related websites.

UKCI is a new venture created to bring new technologies, including .ART domain names, to the global art world. UKCI is the conception of Chairman Ulvi Kasimov, a pioneering businessman recognised by Forbes as one of Russia's leading venture capitalists. Mr. Kasimov serves on the Board of Trustees at the Moscow Multi-Media Art Museum and has sponsored a number of prominent exhibitions and publications, including "Russian Art from Private Collections: Borovikovsky to Kabakov," on view at the ABA Gallery in New York in 2012.

Ben Crawford, CentralNic's CEO, said: "The Top-Level Domain industry has not previously encountered a venture capitalist of the calibre of Ulvi Kasimov, whose exciting vision for the a new online home for the art world comes backed with the resources and expertise to execute at a global scale. We are delighted that UKCI have selected CentralNic as their exclusive registry service provider. .ART has the potential to be one of the great success stories in the restructuring of the Internet, and we are proud to be providing the technical platform to support it."

UKCI Chairman, Ulvi Kasimov said: "As well as being the world's leading distributor of new TLD domain names by volume, CentralNic's new TLD registry support team have proven that they have the expertise and flexibility to meet .ART's requirements."

-Ends-

For further information:

About CentralNic

CentralNic (LSE: CNIC) is a London-based AIM-listed company which is the world's leader in wholesaling domains using the new Top-Level Domains.

CentralNic earns revenues from the worldwide sales of internet domain names over its proprietary technology platforms. These domain names are sold on an annual subscription basis and paid for by customers upfront, making CentralNic a cash-generative business with annuity revenue streams.

The Group comprises three business lines within the domain name industry. It operates a global wholesale network, supplying domain names to over 1,500 vendors in 77 countries. CentralNic is the exclusive wholesaler for over 30 new Top-Level Domain extensions (the new alternatives to .com and .net), Including .xyz, .online, .website, .space, and .site, which are ranked among the top twenty most subscribed new Top-Level Domain extensions. Almost one in four of all domains registered under new TLDs globally uses the CentralNic platform, ranking CentralNic as the leading global supplier with over four million of these domains under management. 

CentralNic is also a leading global domain name retailer, with retail websites including internetbs.net, buydomains.london and domain.luxury, as well as most recently instra.com and others following its acquisition of global domain name retailer Instra Group. Additionally, via its enterprise programme, CentralNic supplies domain names (including high-value premium domain names), software and services directly to large corporations and governments.

For more information please visit: www.centralnic.com