Calling in from Argentina where he was opening up a new office, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick carries the following benefits to four of its main constituencies:

Publishers - Accelerates Google's display advertising business. People will be able to use unified metrics. Doubleclick has some of the best tools in the world and Google can now use those across all its services. More tools means more choices.

Advertising Agencies – Agencies have been asking for integrated solutions and this will provide an efficient solution.

Advertisers - Better targeting, more buying options and the ability to integrate search and display metrics onto one platform.

Users - System will run faster and serve more relevant ads

Schmidt added on the conference call this afternoon that Google did a strategic review this year and discovered that the scale of the display ad business was larger than the company had initially thought. So, they changed their view and unlike previous times where informal talks between the two companies had taken place, Google acted. I imagine Microsoft's interest was the catalyst.

The deal provides Hellman & Friedman with a huge return. The San Francisco private equity firm took DoubleClick private for $1.1 billion two years ago.

For more on Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, see:
Acquisition conference call
DoubleClick press release

Tags: google, m&a, doubleclick, , vc, venture+capital