Now that Microsoft Corp plans to buy online advertising company aQuantive Inc for US$6 billion, investors and analysts are wondering if competitor ValueClick Inc is a prime target for a takeover itself.
ValueClick, which some analysts see as the No. 4 player in the online advertising space, is the last man standing now that aQuantive and other sector majors have all been acquired in a matter of weeks.
On Thursday, advertising giant WPP Group PLC said it would purchase online advertising company 24/7 Real Media for US$649 million, and last month Google Inc said it would buy private online advertising firm DoubleClick Inc for US$3.1 billion. Yahoo said it agreed to purchase private online advertising exchange Right Media Inc for US$680 million the same month.
Some analysts think ValueClick is still on its own because buyers are most interested in gaining ad serving technology, which only makes up a small portion of the company's sales.
The technology helps companies place and manage their online advertising.
Still, analysts also think potential ValueClick buyers exist.
"Last one standing at the dance sounds like a negative," Global Crown Capital analyst Martin Pyykkonen said, but the flip side is that there's still a few potential buyers for the company.
With a competitive marketplace for the companies that have sold so far, ValueClick "should be attractive to somebody," Pyykkonen said.
Pyykkonen estimated the company could fetch as much as US$4 billion, based on a premium over his current US$33 price target for the company and the purchase prices of its peers. Microsoft's bid put an 85 percent premium on aQuantive, while WPP's offer set a 30 percent premium on 24/7. DoubleClick was privately held at the time of the Google offer.
But with so many major companies already acquiring its peers, the question is who might be left to buy ValueClick.
Eric Martinuzzi, an analyst with Craig-Hallum Capital, said that based on the recent purchases it would make "absolute sense" if a major marketing and advertising company like Omnicom Group Inc or Interpublic Group of Companies Inc bought ValueClick.
He also agreed News Corp and Advertising.com owner Time Warner Inc could be potential ValueClick suitors.
And despite its recently announced Right Media purchase, Yahoo might also benefit from "a more strategic relationship" with ValueClick, Martinuzzi said.
Not everybody thinks ValueClick is at the top of the buyout list.
Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Richard Fetyko pointed instead to Web marketing technology company Viewpoint Corp, saying its assets and technology make it a logical company to be purchased.
And ValueClick still has some problems, which analysts acknowledged. On Friday, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission concerning its lead-generating practices.
Piper Jaffray analyst Aaron Kessler said it's still hard to say how the investigation will impact ValueClick. Kessler thinks the company currently complies with lead-generating rules, and the question now is whether or not the FTC wants to clamp down on what types of practices are allowed.
Kessler and Pyykkonen don't think the investigation will staunch its chances of being acquired, but it could hurt the company.
"It could be an overhang on the stock, until there's more clarity," Kessler said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six