Microsoft Corp said on Friday it would buy aQuantive Inc for $6 billion, paying an 85 percent premium to snap up one of the last large independent companies in a consolidating Web advertising market.
In the biggest acquisition ever made by the world's largest software maker, Microsoft said it would pay aQuantive shareholders $66.50 a share, a hefty premium to the company's closing share price of $35.87 on Thursday.
The all-cash deal tops a $10 billion consolidation spree across the online advertising market, sparked when Google Inc agreed to buy DoubleClick Inc for $3.1 billion last month. Yahoo Inc followed by snatching up the 80 percent of Right Media it did not already own in a deal valued at $680 million.
Comments
Comments are closed.