ONE of Britain’s leading search-engine marketing companies has been bought by a larger American rival in a deal thought to value it at more than £40m, writes Paul Durman.

Arjo Ghosh, 38, founded Brighton-based Spannerworks in his bedroom 10 years ago.

The firm, which has doubled in size in each of the past two years, is benefiting from the increasing importance that companies attach to being “findable” by online consumers.

It has been acquired by iCrossing, an Arizona company headed by Richard Rosenblatt, former chairman of the MySpace social-networking website, which was sold to News Corporation in a $580m (£297m) deal in 2005. (News Corporation is the ultimate owner of The Sunday Times.)

Ghosh is staying on to help build up iCrossing’s business in Europe. “We are becoming a glo-bal interactive marketing company, and Spannerworks is very much in the vanguard,” he said.

“When you’re working with large brands, how they leverage their digital assets is a really big question for them now. A lot of brand recognition often starts online.”

Jeffrey Herzog, iCrossing’s chief executive, said the two companies shared a vision about the growing importance of search, whether via the computer, the mobile phone or interactive TV. “We believe that the digital channel is at the centre of the future of advertising,” he said.

He added that iCrossing planned to take its “rightful place” on the Nasdaq technology market, possibly as soon as next year.

iCrossing’s directors also include Don Scales, former chief executive of Agency.com, the online-marketing agency.

The price paid by iCrossing, mostly in shares, is a high multiple of Spannerworks’ sales, which were around £4.5m last year. It has worked for clients including Glaxo Smith Kline, Woolworths and Virgin.com.

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