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Razorfish CEO bats down rumors of sale, but leaves door open
The CEO of online ad agency Razorfish today batted down rumors that parent company Microsoft plans to sell off the business, but didn't rule out that possibility in the future.
Clark Kokich, who spoke briefly with TechFlash just before giving the closing keynote address at Entrepreneur University in Seattle, said there are "no plans" to sell Razorfish.
But Kokich added: "That doesn't mean that two to three to four years from now, it might not happen."
Kokich denied reports that Microsoft has held talks with advertising giant WPP about a Razorfish sale.
"They're a customer, a buyer of Microsoft ad products," he said of WPP.
Razorfish recently laid off 40 staff at its New York office, citing a dropoff in business from the city's financial sector. Asked if Razorfish plans further cuts, Kokich said: "There's no real restructuring going on, but we are experiencing some caution on the part of clients that didn't exist until recently."
Microsoft acquired Razorfish when it bought the agency's parent company, aQuantive, for $6 billion, last year. The software giant is thought to have been primarily interested in aQuantive's technology units, the online advertising platform Atlas and website ad network DRIVEpm.
There's been frequent speculation that Microsoft is looking to unload Razorfish.
At the time of the Microsoft purchase, the ad agency was called Avenue A/Razorfish, but it recently rebranded itself Razorfish.
About Todd Bishop
Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.
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