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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Tech / Money Microsoft Takes $6.2 Billion Loss on aQuantive Acquisition

Posted by Goldy on Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:29 AM

Microsoft announced yesterday that it would write off a $6.2 billion loss on its $6.3 billion 2007 acquisition of online ad service company aQuantive, likely leading to an uncharacteristic earnings loss in the previous fiscal quarter.

I guess Bing isn't dinging Google much when it comes to ad revenues.

The aQuantitive acquisition was Microsoft's largest ever until the Redmond giant's $8.5 billion purchase of Skype last year. Here's hoping Skype works out a little better.

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Buying Skype doesn't usually end well. Just ask eBay.

Posted by Tyler Pierce on July 3, 2012 at 8:40 AM

Remember Nick Hanauer, the jizzillionaire who couldn't force TED to make his audition speech an official TED Talk? Hired a PR army to sell us the notion that it was because Hanauer was just too down on the rich for the snooty TEDsters? He was aQuantive's largest single shareholder, and made just shy of $300 million when Microsoft bought it. Poor fella.

Posted by gloomy gus on July 3, 2012 at 8:45 AM

@2 Nick was also a major early Amazon investor I believe. The man is a fountain of awesomely right place and right time.

Posted by Joe Szilagyi

on July 3, 2012 at 8:51 AM

@3, true that. His rage over not getting his speech accepted I took as an augury that pride might be starting to get the best of him. His transition from moneymaker to cultural icon may not be as smooth as he'd imagined.

Posted by gloomy gus on July 3, 2012 at 9:06 AM

Its hard to get your foot in the door when Google's foot takes up the entire area and Yahoo happily eating the leftover scraps. Apple will probably have similar loses in attempts to generate money via online ads, but it wont be as severe, having only paid 300 million for Quattro Wireless.

Posted by Kinison

on July 3, 2012 at 10:17 AM

Think of all the jobs they created here

Posted by watchout5

on July 3, 2012 at 11:02 PM

And the Big Bald Bozo rattles on. Windows Phone disaster may yet put this bad acquisition in the shade. In lieu of a decent dividend, could the BBB please help the long-suffering shareholders by sending them a nice bottle of lube? (Bing Branded!)

Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber