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Advertising - Thursday, May 17, 2007

WPP Gets Its Ad Server. Buys 24/7 Real Media For $649M

As we have been posting, 24/7 has been open to a buyout and the company last week disclosed that it had hired Lehman to rep it. There was speculation that Microsoft might be interested but one analyst wrote that 24/7's poor quarterly performance might have spoiled their chances with Redmond.

Today, the company agreed to be bought for $11.75 per share by advertising conglomerate WPP. The offer price represents a premium of 30% over the average closing price of 24/7 Real Media's shares for the last sixty 60 trading days.

At this point there remain a couple of large, public online ad networks that Microsoft could buy - aQuantive and Valueclick would top the list, but from what we understand Redmond is set on building its own business, combined with Yahoo as either a partner or a buyout, plus some smaller buyouts of private companies.

Read - announcement