Gen Digital Confirmed to Have Made Early-Stage Takeover Approach for GoDaddy, Financial Times Reports

Gen Digital, the cybersecurity company behind Norton, LifeLock and Avast, has made an early-stage takeover approach for GoDaddy, according to a Financial Times report published Thursday, September 24, 2026, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The FT reported the offer was made in recent weeks and that discussions remain in an early stage, with no guarantee a deal gets done. The exact terms of the offer have not been disclosed. Both Gen Digital and GoDaddy declined to comment to the FT.

Markets moved fast anyway. GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) shares jumped as much as 14% on the news, according to TradingView, pushing its market capitalization from around $12.2 billion to roughly $13.6 billion, per Domain Name Wire. Gen Digital (NASDAQ: GEN) stock fell about 7% to 7.6%, dropping its own market cap from $15.7 billion to roughly $14.6 billion.

Wix, a GoDaddy competitor in the website-building space, saw its shares surge 6.5% on the speculation, TradingView reported, presumably on hopes that consolidation elsewhere in the sector could reshuffle competitive dynamics.

What Gen Digital would be buying

Gen Digital was formed in 2022 through the merger of NortonLifeLock and Avast, building what amounts to a rollup of consumer cybersecurity brands, according to Domain Name Wire. The company has since branched into fintech, acquiring MoneyLion for roughly $1 billion in April 2025.

GoDaddy has evolved well past domain registration into web hosting, e-commerce tools and AI-powered features aimed at small businesses. The company narrowed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $5.215 billion to $5.255 billion, and its second quarter of 2026 brought in $1.3 billion, up 7% year-over-year.

Gen Digital reported record revenue of approximately $5 billion for its fiscal year 2026. A deal for GoDaddy at anything near its current $12 billion to $13.6 billion valuation would dwarf the MoneyLion purchase by more than 10 times and would likely require significant debt, new equity, or both, to finance.

Both companies happen to be headquartered in the same city, Tempe, Arizona, a coincidence multiple outlets flagged but which has no bearing on deal logistics.

GoDaddy's rough year

GoDaddy has not had an easy 2026. Its stock took a roughly 14% hit in February after the company missed earnings guidance. A class-action lawsuit followed in September, alleging the company made misleading disclosures about customer acquisition. Domain Name Wire also noted GoDaddy's stock has been under pressure from broader investor fears about artificial intelligence's impact on its core web-services business, a concern that has weighed on multiple legacy internet infrastructure companies this year.

That backdrop matters for how to read this approach. A company facing a depressed valuation, a lawsuit, and AI-disruption fears is exactly the kind of target that draws acquisition interest, whether from a strategic buyer looking to expand or a private equity firm looking to buy cheap. Domain Name Wire's own framing noted it "wouldn't be surprising to see other companies approach the company about an acquisition, perhaps to take it private," suggesting Gen Digital may not be the only suitor circling.

Where the coverage diverges

Crypto Briefing described this as a "reported bid" valued at roughly $12 billion, framing language that reads as more concrete than what the underlying FT reporting actually supports. The FT's own sourcing, as relayed by both TradingView and Domain Name Wire, describes an early-stage approach with undisclosed terms and explicitly no guarantee of a completed transaction. Readers should treat the $12 billion figure as roughly GoDaddy's pre-news market capitalization, not a confirmed offer price, since no source has published actual deal terms.

No regulatory filing, merger agreement, or joint statement has been issued by either company as of Thursday. Until Gen Digital or GoDaddy confirm terms, or the talks collapse, the size, structure, and even the seriousness of the approach remain unverified beyond what unnamed sources told the Financial Times.

The next concrete marker will be whether either board discloses a formal proposal, or whether the companies simply let the story fade the way many early-stage takeover rumors do. Until then, the stock moves, roughly $1.4 billion added to GoDaddy's market value and over $1 billion shaved off Gen Digital's, are the only hard facts on the table.