Microsoft Sells Razorfish for Over $500 Million
Today, the Wall Street Journal announced that Microsoft would be selling the internet marketing and interactive ad agency they purchased back in 2007: Razorfish. The agency is being sold for a whopping $500-$600 million and has had some big name clients such as Kraft, Best Buy and AT&T.
Publicis Groupe SA, a french Internet Marketing and Advertising firm will take Razorfish by the horns going forward. Bidding for the company was a fierce batte. It has been rumored that Dentsu, Japan’s largest ad agency bid higher than Publicis, but was still denied the acquisition which has caused some speculation.
This move by Microsoft comes shortly after their agreement made last month with Yahoo to use Bing as the search engine to drive www.yahoo.com and use Microsoft’s ad center for self serving ads. Razorfish never used Microsoft’s technology in this matter, so unloading them after the new Yahoo deals makes sense in my opinion.
