This one will be a biggie, possibly the biggest digital media-related acquisition in the last five years if it happens: WSJ reports that online firm DoubleClick is exploring a sale, and is already in active talks with Microsoft, among other potential suitors. The asking price is about $2 billion.
Among the options suggested by its banker Morgan Stanley includes an IPO as well. The company is majority-owned by San Francisco PE firm Hellman & Friedman, which since purchasing DoubleClick in 2005 for $1.2 billion, has sold off a number of divisions and reshaped the business.
Some more details from the WSJ story:
—it roughly $150 million in revenue last year, and more than $100 million came from serving ads.
—Other suitors may include IAC and other PE firms.
—Since the sale to Hellman, DoubleClick has sold its e-mail marketing service for about $90 million and in December agreed to sell its Abacus data-management and analytical unit to Alliance Data Systems for around $435 million.
—Google is looking to get into the third-party ad serving game. One possibility is a service focused around video ad-serving.