May 17th, 2007
WPP acquires 24/7 Real Media; another online advertiser bites the dust
Guess Microsoft just didn’t want 24/7 Real Media after all.
24/7 Real Media said in a statement that it sold out to advertising giant WPP Group for $649 million today. A few takeaways on this deal.
- Online advertising plays are being gobbled up quickly;
- The price paid for 24/7 Real Media was a far cry from the whisper numbers of $1 billion;
- And you can’t believe everything you read in the newspaper–especially the New York Post. If you flash back to May 1, the New York Post reported that Microsoft was looking to take out 24/7 Media for $1 billion.
Given the actual selling price of 24/7 Real Media it appears Microsoft wasn’t all that interested. Surely, the folks in Redmond could have scrounged up $700 million to top WPP. Oh yeah, Microsoft must have been preoccupied with buying Yahoo–another Post whopper.
The big picture: Online advertising companies are going going gone, but there are still a few around–ValueClick for example.
As for 24/7 Real Media it gets a home within the WPP, which really needs to figure out the Internet if it’s going to keep clients. 24/7 Real Media will give WPP the technology and talent to compete more effectively with Internet giants.
WPP will pay $11.75 a share for 24/7 Real Media.
WPP added that the 24/7 Real Media management–CEO David J. Moore, COO/CFO Jonathan Hsu and CTO Oleg Vishnepolsky–will continue in their current roles developing the company and WPP’s digital group.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.
Subscribe to Between the Lines via Email alerts or RSS.
