DoubleClick Layoffs, Performics Sale Confirmed

The New York Times reports the DoubleClick layoffs are official, and imminent. They’re also more widespread than expected, representing about 25 percent of DoubleClick’s 1,200 U.S. employees.

Acquisitions breed layoffs, and these come as no surprise. Neither does the fact that Google will be selling off Performics, DoubleClick’s SEM firm. Google owning an SEM firm would just plain look bad to clients worried about getting a clean deal from a search agency owned by the world’s biggest search ad seller.

It would be like a large Web publisher owning an ad agency or something…. (Microsoft, anyone?)

Who might buy Performics? Valueclick has expressed an interest. At a conference in December, the company said it would want to be on the short list of suitors.