After a month of perusing Microsoft’s digital shop Razorfish, ad holding company Publicis Groupe has made the deal official-- beating out competition from other ad giants including WPP, Dentsu, Omnicom, and others. The cash and stock purchase comes to roughly $530 million.  Under the terms of the deal, Razorfish will continue to operate as its own brand under the umbrella of Publicis’ VivaKi division.

In addition to bolstering Publicis’ digital clout—AdAge’s Abbey Klassen and Matthew Creamer estimate the purchase should “generate 25% of Publicis Groupe's revenue from digital,” it also strengthens Razorish’s position as a global agency. It should also “give it traditional corporate siblings with whom it could work to pitch bigger clients.” 

Razorfish CEO, Bob Lord said of the deal, "A lot of our clients have asked us to help them with global reach…It would have taken us a lot longer to do it without Publicis Groupe.”  Microsoft purchased Razorfish in 2007 but kept it separated from other ad properties such as DrivePM and Atlas to avoid a conflict of interest.

As David Kenny, managing partner of Publicis’ VivaKi notes, that made Razorfish somewhat of “an orphan island on its own.” Now off that island, with strong siblings to boost its business, Razorfish should see a nice bump in growth.  Source: AdAge, more