Trinity Mirror laps up Hotgroup for 50,5 m pounds

Trinity Mirror laps up Hotgroup for 50,5 m pounds

	Published : Sat, 03 Sep 2005 06:05 By : Cedric Benson Print this Story

LONDON: Newspaper group Trinity Mirror is acquiring online classified advertising company Hotgroup for 50.5 million pounds in cash. This is the group's third internet buy in as many months. It had earlier bought smartnewhomes.com for 16.6 million pounds in July and then agreed to pay 13 million pounds for Financial Jobs Online in August.

The newspaper group's offer of 20.25 pence per share accounts for a premium of 3.8 per cent over Hotgroup's closing price on Wednesday, and a premium of more than 70 per cent since June 21, when the latter made it public that it had received a buy offer.

The deal is expected to bring into the group's fold more than 2 million registered users and a network of sites, including workthing.com, planetrecruit, jobsfinancial and hotrecruit. The sites
advertise between 30,000 and 40,000 job vacancies.

Several traditional print firms are now in the market to lap up online job sites in view of the fact that more and more job seekers are posting their resumes on these job sites. Daily Mail & General Trust bought online recruitment firm Zambassy, while Emap acquired online public sector information site DeHavilland recently.

Trinity Mirror is planning a new service aimed at expanding its Racing Post readership, offering webcasts of horse races and comparative odds from five selected bookmakers.

Trinity Mirror's chief executive Sly Bailey said the company sees opportunities for the management and continued development of the Hotgroup alongside its existing recruitment advertising businesses.
"The acquisition is consistent with our strategy of growing Trinity Mirror's core classified franchises both on- and off-line," he added.

Hotgroup will retain its current management structure and will be run as a separate company within Trinity Mirror, according to the company.