Race to grab slice of Monster heats up

New York: LinkedIn Corp and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners are among a number of parties that have expressed interest in buying internet jobs-search company Monster Worldwide Inc, people familiar with the matter said.

Shares of Monster closed up 19 per cent to $9.34 (Dh34.27) on the New York Stock Exchange, giving it a market value of about $1.1 billion. LinkedIn shares finished down 3.4 per cent to $107.23.

But according to a source close to LinkedIn, after an assessment last week, the social media company has decided not to pursue Monster.

The sources did not wish to be quoted by name because the process is private.

Monster, which runs Monster.com and HotJobs.com Websites, said in March it has retained Stone Key Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to review strategic alternatives, including selling all or part of the company.

New York-based Monster has since received expressions of interest from several strategic and financial buyers, the sources said. The company plans to send out financial information to the interested parties by the end of this week, they said.

Representatives for Monster, LinkedIn and Silver Lake declined to comment. Stone Key Partners and Bank of America had no immediate comment.

The sale talks come as Monster's model of job ads is facing new competition from social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn as well as several other rivals in an industry where the barriers to entry are low. The company said in January it would cut 7 per cent of its staff, or 400 jobs.

Monster's 2012 share of online recruitment is estimated at 23 per cent, below CareerBuilder.com's 32 per cent but ahead of LinkedIn's 16 per cent. The online recruitment market is estimated at more than $5 billion.