The Hotgroup plc acquires Workthing Ltd

The Hotgroup plc acquires Workthing Ltd from Guardian Media Group for 6 Million.

Recruitment specialist the hotgroup plc today announces the acquisition of Workthing Limited from Guardian Media Group plc for a total of 6m in cash. This acquisition makes the hotgroup the number one online recruitment business in the UK in terms of numbers of monthly jobseekers and by the size
of its candidate database, following four online quisitions earlier this year.

Workthing Limited comprises an online recruitment site, www.workthing.com and PeopleBank Technology, an e-recruitment technology provider of corporate career sites, supplying some of the UKís largest employers.

The strategy of hotgroupís online business, hotonline.com, centres on ownership of leading specialist websites that are leading players in their particular sector. This acquisition adds one the UKís leading corporate recruitment sites (top 10) with a very strong consumer brand. The acquisition of Workthing Limited will enable hotonline to offer its clients candidate management and sifting technology, given its leading position within this fast growing space.

Commenting on this acquisition, Tony Reeves, Chairman and CEO of the hotgroup, said ìThe last 12 months have been exceptional for hotonline.com, the groupís online business. We have made five acquisitions and all of our acquired businesses have been fully integrated. Todayís acquisition of Workthing makes hotonline the UKís number one online recruitment provider in terms of numbers of monthly jobseekers and by the size of its candidate database1. Most significantly we have acquired one of the UKís leading
consumer jobseeker brands and a strong new corporate customer base. We will continue to build our businesses and make strategic acquisitions to maintain our leading position.î

Harvey Sinclair, Managing Director of hotonline.com said, ìOnline recruitment in the UK is going through a period of explosive growth, along the lines of the US recruitment market. In 2002 the average number of monthly jobseekers accessing our network of sites was 100,000. Today, this number is nearly 900,000. With the acquisition of Workthing we will add about another 500,000 users.

This acquisition is incredibly exciting for us; our aim was to become the UKís leading player in the online recruitment market by 2005 and todayís acquisition means we have achieved this goal way ahead of target.î