Microsoft writes off $6.2 billion spent on aQuantive

Microsoft has announced that it will take a one-off write-down for the impairment of goodwill in its Online Services Division. The company attributes this primarily to its 2007 purchase of aQuantive.

Redmond bought the online advertising firm in 2007 for $6.3 billion, making it at the time the company's largest acquisition (since surpassed by the $8 billion Skype purchase). Though Microsoft has slowly increased its online advertising revenue, the company says in its statement that the aQuantive takeover did not "accelerate growth to the degree anticipated."

Goodwill is a firm's intangible value—the value of its brand, its market recognition, the knowledge and skills of its employees, and so on. The enormous write down indicates that Microsoft overpaid substantially for aQuantive. The company offloaded aQuantive subsidiary Razorfish for $530 million in 2009.

Microsoft's statement maintains that apart from the write down, the Online Services Division's business is still improving, but that future growth and profitability expectations are lower than previously estimated.