14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo's streamlining continues after selling off or closing down a number of unimportant or unprofitable proprieties. The company has announced that it finally managed to sell Yahoo HotJobs, something it's been trying to do for quite a bit of time. Monster, which already has an interest in job listings, will take HotJobs off Yahoo's hands for $225 million in cash. That's well below the $436 million it paid in 2002 but, then again, it's not the same Yahoo it was in 2002.
"Bringing together Monster and HotJobs creates even greater access and opportunities for both recruiters and job seekers," Hilary Schneider, EVP, Yahoo, said. "The transaction with Monster enables us to continue to provide an important service to our users through the traffic agreement. Yahoo! remains focused on its core businesses and delivering exceptional experiences to users, partners and advertisers."
Don't feel too bad for Yahoo though, as the deal also comes with a three-year contract under which Monster will provide Yahoo with job and career content in the US and Canada. In a sense, it doesn't really change anything for the users and Yahoo still gets to make some money out of job listings without the upkeep of running the business.
The deal is subject to some revenue marks that have to be reached, but it's likely everything should go smoothly. Monster will also get the right to strike similar deals with Yahoo in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Yahoo probably got the best that it could hope for and, in its current form, the deal also guarantees some cash-flow in the future.
Yahoo is getting off to a good start in 2010. It recently managed to sell off another propriety which wasn't central to its business, the enterprise email provider Zimbra for an undisclosed amount to VMWare. Another big deal that is expected to close this year is the Microsoft search agreement in which Yahoo outsources its search engine to the Redmond company.