• Paid Content, Sunday, January 3, 2010 10:07 PM

Search marketing specialist iCrossing may be willing to trade in its independent status. The 11-year-old Scottsdale, AZ-based shop has been in discussions with a handful of potential suitors, The Wall Street Journal reports. The selling impulse appears to have come after it received an unsolicited offer from Hearst Corp. That bid, estimated at $250 million, was rejected for being too small, so iCrossing tapped Bank of America as its banker to bring in some more attractive bids. Over the past month, WPP Group, Dentsu, and Aegis Media have approached iCrossing about a possible deal.

iCrossing is backed by big money, and has raised as much as $110 million over the years from Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners, RRE Ventures and others. For the moment, there is a reason to place a bigger bet on Japan's Dentsu as the most likely candidate to win iCrossing.

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