NEW YORK: Yahoo! has hired the Abernathy MacGregor Group for help
it in its $436 million unsolicited bid for the career website
HotJobs.com.
The mega-portal is working to beat an offer made this June from the
parent company of rival career site Monster.com.
Abernathy is tight-lipped about the precise nature of its work to help
Yahoo!, with its $10.50 cash-and-stock exchange for each share of
HotJobs.
Analysts, who have slammed Yahoo! for relying on ads for revenue, have
nonetheless generally criticized the company's latest move.
"While we commend their overall strategy of building paying
relationships with customers, there are better ways to spend money in
this economy," said Aram Sinnreich, senior analyst at Jupiter Media
Metrix.
Yahoo!'s offer, made late last Wednesday, was 62% over HotJobs' closing
price that day of $6.47. Before noon the next day, HotJobs shares
rose 64%, or $4.15, to $10.62, while shares of Monster.com
parent company TMP Worldwide fell 6.4% ($2.87) to $42.18.
Yahoo! shares fell 7%, or $1.38, to $17.76.