Hotgroup expands by spending £1.23m on acquisitions

Emma Rigby,, Revolution UK 10-May-04, 08:00

LONDON - Online recruitment specialist the Hotgroup has spent £1.23m on two new job sites as it seeks to expand its financial offering and develop new areas of business.

Hotgroup's hotonline.com has added JobsFinancial.com and Gisajob.com to its fold of nine specialist recruitment sites and two general recruitment sites.

The group will relaunch the two acquisition sites to fit in with the look and feel of other Hotgroup sites including AbsoluteEngineers.co.uk, HotRecruit.co.uk and JobTrack.co.uk has added.

JobsFinancial.com is a niche site specialising in recruitment within the finance and accountancy sector with more than 80 clients including recruitment agencies Martin Ward Anderson and ECHM Group. Hotgroup is paying a purchase consideration of £680,000 to be satisfied by £500,000 in cash and the balance of £180,000 in shares.

The group aims to become the leader in IT and technology recruitment through its acquisition of Gisajob.com, which focuses in this area and is a direct competitor of PlanetRecruit.com and JobTrack.co.uk, two of Hotgroup's IT sites. Hotgroup is paying a purchase consideration of £55,000 for Gisajob.com, to be satisfied by £400,000 in cash with the balance of £150,000 in shares in Hotgroup.

The group estimates that Gisajob.com will make a profit contribution in 2004 and will immediately add 250,000 unique users to its network.

Hot chairman and chief executive Tony Reeves said: "These 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 while retaining high service standards, and in the case of online acquisitions, see an almost immediate contribution to profitability."

If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the Forum here.