WSJ Microsoft in Talks to Acquire DoubleClick

 Online advertising firm DoubleClick, which has seen its share of troubles in recent years, is now rumored to be exploring a sale to Microsoft, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Such a deal is worth about $2 billion, according to those close to the company. Current owner Hellman & Friedman bought the company for $1.1 billion in 2005, and has sold off a number of divisions amid a massive restructuring.

In addition to a possible sale, the company could be considering an IPO, and has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to go over its various options.

DoubleClick has experienced a decent amount of turmoil since its inception in 1996. The company was the go-to company for Web developers looking to place ads on their pages during much of that decade, but the dot-com bust hit the company hard.

As ad revenues fell sharply, the company ran into financial trouble. The sale to Hellman & Friedman came as the ad market bottomed out. However, since then things have changed, with players like Google successfully restarting the industry.

Microsoft would benefit from a DoubleClick acquisition by bolstering its growing portfolio of online advertising offerings. The paper also indicated there may be interest from private equity firms as well as other large Internet companies.