Thursday, August 6, 2009

French Company, Publicis in lead to acquire Razorfish

Publicis Groupe, a French advertising company, is leading the competition to purchase Razorfish, Microsoft's digital advertising agency. Japan's largest advertising firm, Dentsu is also bidding for Razorfish. No deals are finalized yet. However, Dentsu made a higher offer from the Publicis $500-600 million bid. Publicis negotiations also include a buyer's commitment to purchase hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising on Microsoft's digital properties.

As an attractive target for advertising holding companies, Razorfish could help bolster their digital expertise, to grab ad revenue as it transitions from traditional media to the Internet.

Razorfish has created online pitches for companies such as Levi Strauss & Co., Mercedes-Benz USA and MillerCoors.

Microsoft acquired Razorfish as part of its 2007 aQuantive acquisition for $6 billion. Its estimated that Razorfish could go for $400 - 700 million.

For more about this topic, read the full article on the The Wall Street Journal.

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