Monster Expands Presence in Online Advertising and Education Markets with Acquisition

Monster Worldwide, Inc, the parent company of Monster, the global online careers and recruitment resource, today announced that it has acquired PWP, LLC. PWP, a leading publisher of directory websites in the educational field, will be integrated into Monster Worldwide’s Internet Advertising and Fees business segment, alongside FastWeb, Monsterlearning, and other online media and education-related properties. Monster intends to leverage its advertising sales operations, ad serving platform and existing client relationships to further grow PWP’s directory businesses which connect prospective students with schools and colleges.

PWP owns thousands of education-related domain names and generates more than one hundred thousand ’student to school/college’ referrals per month as well as having more than one million unique users per month who visit for the highly-relevant content and extensive listings of colleges and courses across a wide range of educational subjects and locations. PWP generated approximately $5 million in revenue in 2005 and was profitable - largely on the strength of its leading directory brands such as ArtSchools.com, BusinessSchools.com and CookingSchools.com.

Mark Stoever, SVP, General Manager of Monster’s Internet Advertising and Fees business, said, This transaction presents a tremendous opportunity to increase our presence in the education vertical, currently Monster’s largest consumer advertising segment. The combination of PWP with Monster’s FastWeb and learning products is expected to generate additional high-quality lead generation volume to our growing client base. We believe the acquisition is very timely given PWP’s development. Joining Monster will provide extra resources to accelerate growth and more fully monetize traffic with an expanding list of advertisers. This acquisition highlights Monster’s commitment to grow the Internet Advertising and Fees segment.