ValueClick to Acquire CPA Network WebClients

Good morning, all…

I’m at the Affiliate Summit here in Vegas so I need to make this brief but wanted to let Revenews readers know about a significant move by ValueClick. I hope we can discuss this in length later this week. From a corporate press release today:

ValueClick to Acquire Web Clients, Adding Promotional Websites to Its Product Suite; Company Also Announces Agreement to Acquire E-Babylon to Expand its Printer Cartridge Business and E-Commerce Infrastructure.

As I see it, this is a clear short-term win for ValueClick but I do see some continued (increased now that they are taking ownership in more Web properties) exposure to the Wild Wild West of search engine marketing which companies like WebClients have leveraged heavily. Assuming that search remains the same (“game-able”) it’s smooth sailing; however, given current trends (search engines’ pushing back/down search optimized affiliate pages) I don’t see that happening. Paid advertising could, though, hold the ground for networks of proprietary affiliate sites like WebClients. What about e-mail? I’m sure WebClients uses e-mail to drive traffic to its sites and we’re looking at new CANSpam rule adjustments lately.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, ValueClick will acquire all outstanding equity interests in Web Clients and extinguish all outstanding bank debt for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $141 million, including $122 million in cash, approximately 1.8 million shares of ValueClick common stock and approximately 350,000 options to purchase shares of ValueClick common stock.

Wow. Lots to talk about here I suppose. Anyone know what kind of revs WebClients is seeing? I’ve not been tracking but I don’t think that’s public.

Finally, VCLK’s expansion into inkjets continues and that will surely please investors given how fat inkjet margins can be.