After clearing regulatory hurdles last month, and shareholders approving the deal last Thursday, aQuantive Inc. in a regulatory filing Monday said it was officially a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft (MSFT). Per the terms of the deal, the aQuantive board resigned as well.
The deal by Microsoft for aQuantive was the largest in a recent splurge in spending for companies in the Internet advertising space. It was also the largest acquisition Microsoft has ever made, coming in at $6 billion.
The growing online entertainment industry is the impetus behind all this, as companies battle it out for the surge in online advertising dollars.
At this time competitor Google (GOOG) is waiting for regulatory approval for its offer of $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, a company strong in serving and tracking ads. Google would like to generate more revenue in the graphic display ad sector with this move.
The Google deal is receiving more antitrust scrutiny as rivals claim they would gain too much control over the online advertising market.
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