The Digital Revolution has been a hot topic on Fast Money. The guys have talked about the media migration as more and more people turn to the web for their entertainment needs. One company on the forefront of this revolution is aQuantive (AQNT) – an online advertising company that investors have liked as a takeover target.
Shares of AQNT soared Tuesday as the company reported a doubled quarterly profit. Brian McAndrews, the CEO of aQuantive, joins the guys on the Fast Line to discuss what’s next for his company – and what the Google/Doubleclick deal could mean for his bottom line.
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McAndrews says Doubleclick is a direct competitor to aQuantive’s Atlas business, which serves and tracks advertising effectiveness online. He doesn’t think its acquisition by Google (GOOG) will do anything to change his company’s business strategy – mostly because, with Doubleclick rolled into Google, Atlas will be the only independent third party 'ad serving tool' with scale on the buy side and sell side.
But how, exactly, will the Google/Doubleclick deal will be beneficial to aQuantive?
McAndews says that many advertising agencies choose between aQuantive and Doubleclick’s tools to figure out where they should spend money online – be it, AOL, Yahoo, MSN … or Google. But if Doubleclick is owned by Google, there’s an immediate conflict of interest there, he says. In addition, on the sell side, aQuantive is used by publishers and a lot of publishing companies see themselves as competitors to Google. That could make the decision to choose between Doubleclick and aQuantive pretty easy.
And while McAndrews won’t comment on whether his company has been approached by potential buyers, Tim Strazzini says aQuantive is probably too valuable to a large search company for it to be left alone. He thinks the whole sector faces consolidation and “someone will come in and buy these guys” at some point.
Eric Bolling loves the whole space, Guy Adami thinks the stock is well-poised and Jeff Macke says the period before the Google/Doubleclick deal happens will be a great time for aQuantive’s business.
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Trader disclosure: On May 8, 2007, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC’s Fast Money were owned by the Fast Money traders; Macke Owns (JWN); Bolling Owns (DIS), Gold, Silver; Bolling Is Short Nasdaq Futures, Bolling Closed Out His Tesoro Put Trade; CNBC Is A Service Of NBC Universal And Dow Jones.