The Hot Group acquires a further two businesses

the hotgroup plc (hot), the AIM listed recruitment specialist, is expanding its fast growing online business, hotonline ltd, with two further
acquisitions: JobsFinancial.com and Gisajob.com, for a total of 1,230,000 in cash and share deals.

Jobsfinancial.com is a leading niche recruitment website that specialises within the Finance & Accountancy sector. The UKís second largest jobsite in this sector, it currently offers its service exclusively to recruitment consultancies and has over 80 clients including Martin Ward Anderson, ECHM Group, Nigel Lynn Associates and Ajilon. The business generated revenues of 273,000 in the year to 30th September 2003 and hot is paying a purchase consideration of 680,000 to be satisfied by 500,000 in cash and the balance of 180,000 in shares. Its CEO Alan Dickinson, ex Managing director of Michael Page UK Ltd, will remain with the Group as a consultant.

This acquisition not only allows hotonline, to penetrate a new market area but it also presents synergies with another of the Groupís subsidiaryís, Parkside Recruitment, which has a financial division that places specialist and non-specialist staff in various accountancy and financial roles.

Gisajob.com, which launched seven years ago and is recognised as one of the UKís top 10 online recruitment providers, covers a range of sectors but is mainly focused on IT and Technology positions. It is one of the last remaining free recruitment websites targeting recruitment agencies. Gisajob is a direct competitor of PlanetRecruit and Jobtrack, two of hot groupís leading IT based sites and the combined forced of these three brands will see hot become the leading industry player in online technology recruitment advertising.

hot is paying a purchase consideration of 550,000 for Gisajob.com to be satisfied by 400,000 in cash with the balance of 150,000 in shares in hot. The Directors estimate that Gisajob will make a profit contribution in 2004 and will immediately add a further 250,000 unique users to its network. Founder and Managing Director David Brown will remain as a consultant.

hot Chairman and Chief Executive Tony Reeves said: ìThese acquisitions represent another significant step in the development of our online recruitment business. Not only do they both enhance our existing offering, but the acquisition of JobsFinancial also allows us to penetrate a new sector. By bringing together smaller enterprises under one roof, we are able to cut overheads and running costs whilst retaining high service standards, and, in the case of online acquisitions, see an almost immediate contribution to profitability.

ìOur current online acquisition strategy creates a virtuous circle; increased traffic to our sites leads to increased renewal rates from existing clients and greater selling power when attracting new customers.

ìTo support the Groupís strategy to become a leading technology driven recruitment company in the UK, we have appointed Ian Richardson as our Chief Technology Officer. Ian has a wealth of experience in the IT sector both in the UK and overseas. He has held a number of executive positions including most recently as Development Director at Xansa plc. We believe that Ianís extensive commercial technology experience will speed up the acquisition integration process, as well as accelerate the development of a hybrid service offering that combines the efficiencies of the online capabilities with the personal intervention often required, pre placement, by the employer.î