Microsoft’s $6 billion acquisition of online ad company aQuantive is moving closer to completion, having just cleared an antitrust regulatory hurdle.
Washington, D.C. — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has tacitly approved Microsoft’s $6 billion acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive Inc. by allowing its 30-day investigation period to pass without requesting further information, according to Microsoft spokesman Guy Esnouf.
The Federal Trade Commission mandates a waiting period to review anticompetitive fallout from large mergers. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday, aQuantive said the waiting period passed without requests for further information from the FTC.
“We are pleased the 30-day review period concluded without a second request,” Esnouf told reporters. We now think the transaction will be concluded by the end of the year if not considerably sooner.
“It could have issued a second request and gone into it further, as the FTC has done with the Google-DoubleClick acquisition,” he said. We believe these are very different transactions.
Google’s April purchase of DoubleClick, another online ad agency, is undergoing a “second look” by regulators after Microsoft and others called for a review of the deal.
“We are obviously pleased,” said Tom Phillips, a spokesman for Seattle-based aQuantive. A shareholder meeting to vote on the sale of the company is scheduled for Aug. 9.
Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, companies proposing to merge have to give regulators up to 30 days to scrutinize the deal. Microsoft said the 30-day period has expired without a request by regulators for further information.
Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive followed Google’s earlier announcement that it would buy online ad technology company DoubleClick Inc for $3.1 billion.
With the aQuantive buyout, the Redmond-based software maker hopes to increase advertising revenue from its Live search engine and boost competition against rival Google. The FTC, for its part, seems to agree that Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive raises fewer red flags than Google’s purchase of DoubleClick.
Microsoft’s Live search engine lags far behind sites operated by Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., in the number of searches performed each month. As a result, the company racks up far fewer dollars from the small text ads placed next to search results.
When the acquisition was announced back in May, Microsoft said it plans to use the aQuantive assets to create next-generation advertising systems, including cross media planning, video-on-demand and IPTV.
aQuantive has seen significant growth in the decade since its inception, evolving to include three main brands:
Atlas, which makes the Media Console advertising platform; DRIVEpm, which provides ad services that match advertiser campaigns with publisher inventory; and Avenue A | Razorfish, which, as one of the largest online ad agencies in the world, provides advertisers digital marketing consultation along with media planning and buying.
aQuantive, a long-time customer and supplier of Microsoft, will continue to operate from its Seattle headquarters as part of Microsoft’s Online Services Business.
Phillips said aQuantive is still working out how the organization, which employs 2,560 people worldwide, with 662 in Seattle, will look after the buyout.
Online advertising became an attractive target for acquisitions. Along with Google and Microsoft, Yahoo bought a $680 million stake in Right Media and WPP Group announced it would pay $649 million for 24/7 Real Media.