Hot group plc acquires Planetrecruit Ltd

After much speculation hot group plc today confirmed they have acquired PlanetRecruit Ltd, a leading supplier of online services to recruitment agencies and jobseekers.

The share deal that values PlanetRecruit at 3million will compliment hot group's core agency focused products, which include jobtrack.co.uk and jobsearch.co.uk. The enlarged group will be providing further critical mass in the agency recruitment market and be in a position to deliver a more
comprehensive offering to agency customers. The deal makes hot group the fifth largest supplier of online recruitment services and the third largest provider to recruitment agencies in the UK.

Agencies post over 60,000 jobs a month on PlanetRecruit, which holds a candidate database of over 300,000 live CVs, making it one of the most extensive online job resources in the UK. PlanetRecruit is the largest provider of jobs to
Yahoo! UK job classifieds and is partnered with MSN and Hotmail. The site has twice been short-listed for ëIT Recruitment Service of the Yearí at the Computing Awards for Excellence.

hot group Chairman and Chief Executive Tony Reeves said: ìThis is a major step forward in the development of hot group. This acquisition is part of our three-phase growth strategy, the first phase being to substantially grow the online division. The second phase will build the traditional agency model through acquisitions during 2003, and the final stage will redefine the traditional recruitment model through the marrying of both online and offline recruitment models, through the use of technology, advanced re-sourcing and strategic development. We are currently in negotiations with a number of other potential acquisition opportunities.î

hot group Managing Director of the online division Harvey Sinclair said: ìThis is extremely exciting news as it dramatically increases our market share and solidifies us as one of the UKís leading suppliers of online recruitment
solutions. Planetís brand, product and website will remain intact to the jobseeker but sales and operations will be consolidated within hot group. The combined business is anticipated to achieve greater critical mass within the
online recruitment industry, and the Directors estimate that the business will attract over 500,000 job seekers per month through its websites.î

www.thehotgroup.com


About hot group plc
hot group plc (formerly Rexonline plc) is a recruitment services network and has been providing online recruitment solutions for over 7 years. hot group offers a range of online resourcing products through its collection of niche
sites.

Current hot group products include: Jobtrack.co.uk Jobsearch.co.uk,Hotrecruit.com, Rex.co.uk,
Career-ahead.co.uk, Absolute-comms.co.uk,
Absolute-engineers.co.uk, Engineersonthenet.com,
Absolute-secretaries.co.uk,
Absolute-scotland.co.uk, www.jobtrack.ie

About PlantRecruit
PlanetRecruit is matchmaking service for recruiters and job seekers. Recruiters advertise their vacancies on the site and job seekers upload their CVs and review the jobs on offer. PlanetRecruitís distinguishing feature is that itís a subscription service aimed exclusively at agencies. It is an aggregator of recruitment agency vacancies and and covers a broad selection of job sectors, offering both UK and international jobs. Planet offers added-value services to both recruiters and job seekers, and a simple monthly subscription allows agencies unlimited access to its sites.