VeriSign Inc. today said it will sell its Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions subsidiary for $100 million, a far cry from the $16 billion it spent to acquire the business during the height of the dot-com boom.

Pivotal Private Equity, a Phoenix-based investment firm, will pay $100 million for Network Solutions, the world's largest retailer of Internet addresses. Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign said it will retain a 15 percent stake in the company.

VeriSign also will keep the master list -- or registries -- of Internet domain names ending in "dot-com" and "dot-net." Bob Korzeniewski, VeriSign's executive vice president for corporate development, said that keeping the registry is consistent with the company's focus.

"While [Network Solutions] was a strong profitable business, it just didn't fit in with our strategy," Korzeniewski said.

VeriSign is the Internet's largest authentication company, processing payments for 25 percent of online transactions in the United States. The company is also a major telecom player providing infrastructure services for more than 1,000 carriers.

It operates the dot-com and dot-net registries under an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the Internet's addressing system.

Korzeniewski downplayed the selling price, saying that the registries were the most valuable asset VeriSign acquired in the Network Solutions deal.

Pivotal Private Equity chief executive Jahm Najafi said that he does not anticipate cutting any of the 600 positions at Network Solutions, most of which are based in Herndon. VeriSign will continue to employ about 400 workers in its offices in Washington, D.C., and Dulles, Va.

Najafi said Network Solutions would do better as a private company where it can build its business as a domain name retailer. "There are still millions of companies out there that don't have a Web site yet," he said.

The sale is the latest in a long slide downward for both the domain name resale business and the fortunes of the once lucrative and powerful Northern Virginia high-tech corridor.

When it was acquired, Network Solutions was one of the brightest stars in the dot-com constellation. Demand for domain names was at an all-time high, and Network Solutions was by far the dominant player in that business. At one time it was the only company authorized to sell names ending in dot-com, dot-org and dot-net, making it an attractive target for VeriSign even with the multi-billion-dollar price tag.

Now there are more than 100 competitors in the market, the average price of an Internet address has plummeted from about $35 a year to less than $10 and overall demand has leveled off.

One of the most expensive retailers, Network Solutions faces tough downward pressure on its prices from its competitors. The company remains thinly profitable, but grew its revenue base very little compared to the rest of VeriSign.

"Obviously from a fundamental perspective, this business was challenged. It has been somewhat of a blemish on the VeriSign story," said Rob Owens, an analyst for Portland Ore.-based investment bank Pacific Crest.

"I think it makes all the sense in the world," said Todd Weller an analyst for Legg Mason, an investment firm based in Baltimore. "Wall Street doesn't really care about domain-name resale market anymore."

Weller also said that the multi-billion dollar disparity between Network Solutions's buying and selling price might not be as bad as it looks. "They used inflated stock to buy it," he said. "They paid a lot but it was with kind of funny money currency."

The Network Solutions sale will not affect VeriSign's ongoing controversy over its search service that relies on Internet users' typographical errors to bring in revenue.

Site Finder brought about 1.5 million Web users a day to its Web site when they mistyped the name of common online destinations into their browsers. It offered links to sites with names similar to the user's original query, along with a search box and Web directory with paid advertisements. The directory competed with similar search services offered by America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others.

VeriSign shut the service after a diverse group of technologists accused the company of illegally using -- and abusing -- the Internet for profit. ICANN is conducting an investigation of Site Finder while the service is suspended but VeriSign officials said they want to relaunch it anyway.

VeriSign shares ended the day up 66 cents, or 4.46 percent, at $15.46.