Monster Eats HotJobs, Digests $225M Price Tag

Monster Worldwide on Wednesday said it agreed to acquire rival online job-search company HotJobs from Yahoo for $225 million in cash.

Yahoo is presently engaged in a broad effort to focus its strategic vision and unload non-core assets. Just last month, it agreed to sell mail client Zimbra to VMware -- a provider of so-called "virtualization" software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Yahoo remains focused on its core businesses," said Hilary Schneider, EVP at Yahoo.

Yahoo bought HotJobs in a stock deal worth $436 million at the time in closed in 2001.

Yahoo paid $350 million for Zimbra less than three years ago.

Per the deal, Monster and Yahoo have also entered into a three-year traffic agreement -- to take effect upon the closing of the acquisition -- in which Monster will become Yahoo's official provider of career and job content on the Yahoo home page.

For Monster, the unit represents a valuable customer base. "HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement," Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Monster Worldwide, said Wednesday.

Yahoo on Wednesday said it will continue to manage its broader Newspaper Consortium partnership -- including providing both search and display advertising, content distribution, and its ad-serving platform -- to newspapers in its NPC.

The traffic agreement calls for performance-based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings. In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, subject to certain limitations.

Similarly, Yahoo's deal with VMware gives it the right to continue to use the Zimbra technology in its communications services, including Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Calendar.

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