Yahoo Makes Rival Bid For HotJobs

By: Brian Bergstein, AP Business Writer (AP) Updated at 11:15 a.m.

Yahoo! Inc. is making a $436 million unsolicited bid for the career Web site HotJobs Inc. in hopes of beating an earlier offer from the parent company of Monster.com.

Yahoo said Wednesday it would pay $10.50 in cash and stock for each share of HotJobs, a significant premium over the shares' Wednesday closing price of $6.47.

Shares of HotJobs soared $4.14, or 64%, to $10.61 in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, while shares of Yahoo were off $1.32, or 7%, to $17.82.

Chairman and chief executive Terry Semel said Yahoo was offering HotJobs shareholders a better value, less regulatory risk, and faster merger execution than New York-based TMP Worldwide Inc., Monster.com's parent company. "I'd say there are more de-synergies by having those companies together than there are synergies," Semel said in an interview.

TMP offered to buy the New York-based HotJobs in June in a stock-swap deal that initially valued HotJobs at $12.20 a share. Shares of TMP were off $2.54, or 6%, to $42.51 on the Nasdaq, which now values each share at $9.33.

Spokesmen for HotJobs, TMP, and Maynard, Mass.-based Monster.com did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. Their deal is awaiting approval from federal regulators.

However, in a statement released late Wednesday night, HotJobs said its "merger agreement with TMP remains in effect." The company also said there "is no assurance as to whether a transaction would result from any discussions with Yahoo!."

"These two companies have been tied together since June 29 with the inability and even the vision of when to ever close this deal," Semel said.

HotJobs, which has a database of 5 million resumes, would give Yahoo the Internet's second-largest career site, trailing only Monster.com, which has about 14 million resumes, Yahoo executives said.

Semel said the deal would serve Yahoo's goal of finding new sources of revenue other than advertising. HotJobs charges employers and recruiters to list job postings and to access its database of resumes, and also sells software that helps manage corporate human resource operations.

Founded in 1997, HotJobs lost $21.2 million in the first nine months of this year, on revenue of $92.6 million.

Semel said HotJobs and Yahoo would be well positioned to take advantage of increased job postings and recruitment as the economy recovers. He said the overall market for online career recruitment is worth more than $1 billion a year.

Yahoo agreed in March to have its database of job postings provided by Atlanta-based Headhunter.net, which was acquired by CareerBuilder Inc. last month. CareerBuilder, based in Reston, Va., is part owned by media companies Knight Ridder and Tribune Co.

Semel declined to address how Yahoo's relationship with CareerBuilder would be affected, but CareerBuilder spokesman Barry Lawrence said his company expects Yahoo to honor the remaining 15 months on its contract. He called HotJobs "somewhat damaged goods."

Analyst John Corcoran of CIBC World Markets said Yahoo does not appear to offer HotJobs as many synergies as Monster.com, which he said holds several advantages inherent in being the biggest site. He also said he was surprised Yahoo was making a bid so long after TMP and HotJobs announced their plans.