Microsoft Pays $6 billion for aQuantive: Massive Ad Network Consolidation Is Occuring
Written by on May 18th, 2007 in Ajax News.
Breaking: Microsoft is acquiring advertising network aQuantive, the parent company to Avenue A | Razorfish, Atlas and DRIVEpm, for roughly $6 billion in an all-cash transaction, the company said this morning.
aQuantive is a public company (AQNT) and had a market cap of just $2.8 billion as of yesterday. The acquisition price of $6 billion is a roughly 2x premium on yesterday’s closing price, which is a reflection of the fact that this were competing bidders (see notes below). The acquisition comes after recent big acquisitions by Google and Yahoo in this space. Google bought Doubleclick for $3.1 billion in April. Later that same month, Yahoo acquired competitor RightMedia for $680 million. Just yesterday, WPP Group acquired yet another company in this space, 24/7 Real Media, for $649 million.
2006 revenues for aQuantive were $442 million. Net income as about $54 million.
aQuantive’s operating companies include both tools and ad agencies. The company is located in Seattle.
Microsoft is held a media call this morning to discuss the transaction. My notes are below. At about 7 am PST a recording of the call will be available at 1-800-774-9248.
Notes From Media Call:
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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/117697641/