So as not to be left out in the cold after Google and Yahoo’s recent purchases in the online advertising sector, Microsoft has just bought aQuantive for 6,000 million dollars, 85% more than its market value.
One of the last important players
aQuantiva, a company dedicated to online advertising through its different divisions – the advertising agency Avenue A/Razorfish, the online advertising network DrivePM, and the online ad performance analysis company Atlas – was one of the last big players in the online ad market, after Google’s purchase of DoubleClick and Yahoo! bought the part of the ad agency Right Media it did not own.
As a result of Microsoft’s last operation, and the very recent purchase of the online advertising company 24/7 Real Media by WPP Group, the second biggest advertising agency in the world, ValueClick is the last large independent group left in the sector.
Plenty of liquid assets
Despite the high price paid for aQuantive, sources at Microsoft say that the company is very pleased with the operation. On the one hand, the multinational run by Bill gates has around 28,000 million dollars in liquid assets; on the other, as with Yahoo!, Microsoft also tried to bid for DoubleClick, for which reason the purchase of aQuantive was an opportunity it could not afford to miss.
With this purchase, Microsoft has “done its homework” in the online ad business, a sector with a spectacular growth and estimated revenues of 28,800 million dollars in 2006.
