ValueClick Rises on Buyout Rumors
ValueClick
(VCLK)
shares were enjoying a second straight day of steady gains Tuesday, as renewed buyout speculation boosted the online advertising company.
Shares were trading at $24.23 Tuesday afternoon, up more than 18% since Friday's closing price of $20.48. A Merriman Curran Ford analyst cited a rumor that
Time Warner's
(TWX)
AOL unit was pursuing the company, according to the
Associated Press
. The analyst said, however, that a deal was unlikely.
The company has long been a favorite of takeover speculators. Shares soared in May, after a flurry of
strategic acquisitions in the online advertising space. That's when
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Report
swallowed
aQuantive
(AQNT)
for $6 billion in cash, just weeks after
(GOOG) - Get Report
snapped up
DoubleClick
for $3.1 billion.
More recently,
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
spent $300 million on BlueLithium.