[May 18] In a deal said to be worth $13.1 million,
career portal Monster.com
announced Thursday its acquisition of
RecruitmentScotland.com,
Scotland’s largest recruitment site.
Under the terms of the takeover agreement, Monster.com’s
owner TMP Worldwide has issued 205,703 shares of common
stock for all the shares of Business Technologies Limited,
the company behind RecruitmentScotland.com.
Predicting 2000 sales of over $1.5 million, RecruitmentScotland.com
claims a leadership position in the Scottish market with clients
such as Scottish Equitable, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Scottish Power,
and Scottish Widows.
However, RecruitmentScotland.com is a minnow compared with
Monster.com which has clients that include most of the Fortune 500
companies. TMP Worldwide operates in 29 countries and has over
7,600 employees, while its online recruitment arm has sites in
10 countries, including four in Europe.
Jeff Taylor, chief executive officer of Monster.com, said that
the European network is the major focus for Monster’s global expansion.
“Acquisition of this dominant Scottish site, which like Monster.com
is already profitable, is critical to our rapidly developing
footprint in this region,” said Taylor.
Andrew Wilkinson, managing director, Monster.com Europe, commented
that there was a mass of job opportunities in Scotland, as elsewhere
in Europe. He said the acquisition would give Monster.com a stronger
foothold
in the U.K. market while also enabling European job seekers to connect
with Scottish businesses.
An established site with 65,000 job seekers visiting it on average
each month, RecruitmentScotland.com was launched in October 1997.
Worldwide, Monster.com enjoys over 5.2 million unique visits per month.
Its network now has sites with local language and content in the
U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand,
Singapore, France and Hong Kong.
