Way back in 2007, a DoubleClick buyout was said to have cost Google $3.1 billion. Now, however, an AP report says a filing by the Mountain View-based Web giant with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, actually closed a bit higher. The final price: $3.24 billion.
Hey, what’s $140 million, really? Chump change, right? Actually, not quite. If you want to compare Friday’s quote with other things happening around the Internet, you can juxtapose that added premium with Facebook’s 2007 revenue sits very near that number, give or take a few dozen million. Many, many pennies, to be sure.
For Google, though, the transaction is definitely doable. Even with the drop in public stock value that it was forced to observe, the company need not grimace a bit when pulling out the proverbial checkbook. Besides, looking at what Microsoft dished out for aQuantive last year (ahem, $6bn, ahem), Larry and Sergey are getting a pretty good deal here. With the Web ad market bound for greater things in the next few years, the investment will prove immensely rewarding.