Valleywag
[In the chart, on the x-axis, the market value of the acquirer. The size of the transactions are shown on the y-axis, and by the size of the bubble.]
The $10bn acquisition spree
Like the last unattached cheerleaders, in the week before prom, independent advertising companies are going fast. This morning's big news: Microsoft is taking out the biggest of them all, Aquantive, the group which owns media buyer Avenue A, web shop Razorfish, and other pieces of the online advertising puzzle. The deal, at $6bn, a huge premium to Aquantive's share price, brings the recent acquisition spree in the interactive market to a gigantic $10bn. The orgy of takeovers illustrated after the jump, which have all taken place in the last month, is most frenzied since the last bubble. Microsoft's deal for Aquantive, twice as expensive as Google's purchase of Doubleclick, makes sense geographically, because Aquantive's business is based in Seattle, the software giant's home. The strategic rationale is less clear. More about that later.
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9:02 AM on Fri May 18 2007
By Nick Denton
2,542 views
4 comments
Comments
interesting graph.
everybody seems to be ok doing deals at right around 2% of their market cap.
I'm curious to see why you think strategically it's less clear.
Yes, a lot can go wrong, but MSFT just skimmed the market and is now an advertising and software firm. Any other deal (DCLK, TFSM, etc) would not have accomplished this.
Wrote about the impact and upside for MSFT's online universe and MSN/Live.com efforts here:
http://www.watchmojo.com/web/blog/?p=1571
I know the poster loves to play with charts with green bubbles, unlabeled axes, cluttered text, and nonsensical information, but would it be too much to ask to just dispense with the snot balls (which in this chart are redundant), to label, and to plot things like a normal person?
I can recommend some very good basic Excel and financial charting books if you'd like. Ever heard of Ed Tufte?
hey anonymous: snotballs?!? you don't like snotballs? why then, go get your graph fix elsewhere.
i love 'em. here's to more big green snotballs.
hhoooooiiiiiccchhhhhhhhh----TOOOO!
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