February 03, 2010, 05:03 PM EST
By Brian Womack
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Yahoo! Inc., owner of the second- most-used search engine in the U.S., plans to sell its HotJobs employment Web site to Monster Worldwide Inc. for $225 million in cash.
As part of the sale, Monster will become the provider of career and job content on Yahoo’s home page in the U.S. and Canada for three years, Monster said today in a statement. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.
Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz has reduced expenses and shuttered underperforming businesses, such as the GeoCities Web-hosting site. In July, she struck a deal with Microsoft Corp. to collaborate in Web search and advertising, cutting engineering and capital costs.
“It’s housekeeping step one,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Financial LP in New York, who recommends buying Yahoo shares and doesn’t own any. “It’s the first part of the non-core divestitures that the company and management has to go through. The real notable part is it took a year to get this done.”
Yahoo paid about $436 million for HotJobs in 2002.
Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, rose 29 cents to $15.46 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
–Editor: Jonathan Thaw, Nick Turner
Reposted from: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-03/yahoo-to-sell-hotjobs-to-monster-for-225-million-update1-.html