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Microsoft is reportedly looking to sell its online advertising agency Razorfish just two years after acquiring it as part of a $6bn deal for parent company aQuantive Inc. According to a report in the Financial Times, Microsoft has brought in the investment bank Morgan Stanley to seek out a potential buyer for the agency, which has been valued between $600 million and $700 million. It’s hardly a surprise move as there has been speculation over whether Razorfish really fits into Microsoft’s plans to cut back on unnecessary costs and restrict its actions to core business needs through the recession.

When Microsoft bought aQuantive back in 2007 its main purpose was to create a stronger online advertisng network for the brand and enable the company to compete more effectively with Google. Avenue A/Razorfish, as the company was then called, was far less important to Microsoft than the other benefits aQuantive had to offer as much as it would allow the company to significantly broaden its online ad network and place it in a far better position to compete with search engine giant Google. Acquiring an advertising agency, though, left Microsoft with a possible conflict of interest as Razorfish would be competing directly with the company’s own advertising efforts to market the brand and its products on the web.

Razorfish is a high profile agency with clients including Nike, Mercedes-Benz USA, Levi-Strauss & Co and Audi. The amount of money involved might not seem much to Microsoft, but ridding themselves of the conflict of interest could give Microsoft the opportunity to concentrate on marketing its own products in its own way. The FT report names French marketing company Publicis Groupe as the most likely potential buyer for Razorfish, following further indications that the two companies are also planning to work together on a TV advertising campaign.

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