Media Firms to Acquire Headhunter
Media company Tribune Co. and newspaper publisher Knight Ridder Inc. teamed up Friday to buy online resume bank Headhunter.net Inc. for about $200 million, which they would add to their jointly owned online recruiter CareerBuilder Inc.
Tribune’s newspapers include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Knight Ridder papers include the San Jose Mercury News.
The Headhunter deal would set up a battle between CareerBuilder and Monster.com, owned by TMP Worldwide Inc.
Lanny Baker, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in San Francisco, said the deal was logical and sensible for the newspaper companies. But he predicted a David-versus-Goliath fight and doubted the new, stronger CareerBuilder would present a real challenge to Monster.com.
Monster.com said it had more than 26 million visits in July alone. CareerBuilder gets more than 4 million per month, and Headhunter attracts more than 2.5 million, Tribune said.
TMP is looking to expand Monster with plans to buy HotJobs.com Ltd. The Federal Trade Commission has asked for more information about the proposed deal.
Tribune and Knight Ridder would each contribute about half of the purchase price of $9.25 a share for each Headhunter share. The price represents a 33% premium over Headhunter’s closing price of $6.95 on Nasdaq on Thursday. The shares rose $2.21 to $9.16 on Friday.
Next month, Tribune and Knight Ridder will begin branding their newspaper employment recruitment sections with the CareerBuilder name. And the newspapers will lead readers to the online sites.
Shares of Chicago-based Tribune fell 6 cents to $40.14, and San Jose-based Knight Ridder fell 15 cents to $61.95, both on the New York Stock Exchange. New York-based TMP jumped $1.11 to $46.69 on Nasdaq.
