Knight Ridder, Tribune to Buy Online Job Sites

Knight Ridder Inc. and Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, announced Monday that they have agreed to buy CareerBuilder Inc. and CareerPath.com Inc. in an effort to create a dominant nationwide online jobs marketplace.

San Jose-based Knight Ridder and Chicago-based Tribune, the No. 2 and No. 3 U.S. newspaper companies, would pay $200 million, or $8 per share, for CareerBuilder.

Terms were not disclosed for the purchase of CareerPath.com, a joint venture among large newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. CareerBuilder shares closed Monday up $3.69 at $7.81 on Nasdaq.

The purchase would link the two Internet companies with 45 local daily and national newspapers that have a combined circulation of more than 12 million.

Ads placed by employers on the Internet or in any one of the partner newspapers, which reach 60 local markets, including 24 of the nation’s top 25, would be posted throughout the online CareerBuilder Network.

“What you’ve got is a clarion call for both the companies with classifieds as well as those that are in the online business. . . . They’ve put together tremendous market access,” said Larraine D. Segil, the Century City-based author of “Intelligent Business Alliances.”

Rob McGovern, chairman and chief executive of CareerBuilder, said he sought the partnership in an effort to lead in a sector others now dominate.

Revenue for online job sites is expected to grow from $1.2 billion to $8.2 billion in the next five years, according to Forrester Reseach, a Cambridge, Mass., technology research firm.

“The parties are serious about being the No. 1 player in the marketplace,” McGovern said. “Ten years from now virtually every job will be found and matched online. It’s going to take tools like ours that surpass the primitive job bulletin board to drive the marketplace to the next level.”

Media Metrix, a New York-based Internet audience measurement firm, reports that CareerPath.com received 1.68 million visits in May, making it the fourth-most-frequently visited job site. CareerBuilder had 649,000, putting it in eighth place.

CareerBuilder spokesman Barry Lawrence said the Media Metrix estimates fail to reflect traffic that comes from affiliated sites, such as Microsoft’s MSN.com.

The new CareerBuilder Network partners anticipate total monthly visits at nearly 5 million.

Tim Landon, president of classified services for Tribune, said that although classified employment ads in Tribune-owned newspapers and newspapers in general has been increasing over five years, the involvement by the leading newspaper companies is an effort to expand the business with an eye toward a future in which online plays a more significant role in recruitment and hiring.

“The print business is still very, very robust,” Landon said. “Having said that, there is significant movement to the Internet. For us, it means we’re going to have a very good product and service to sell.”

Dan Finnegan, president of KnightRidder.com, said the proposed partnership has an advantage over other job sites in that it has the potential to sweep in passive job hunters, people who might be reading about their career on one of the newspaper sites and respond to a prompt to click through for job listings in the field.

CareerBuilder’s McGovern said the partnership would offer recruiters a more sophisticated and efficient method of finding employees.

“You can target to a local market. The big complaint employers have about online job sites is you get 1,000 resumes, and 10 meet your needs,” he said.

Tribune and Knight Ridder are expected within seven business days to make a tender offer of $8 a share for CareerBuilder’s outstanding shares. Holders of about 44% of the company’s shares have agreed to support the deal.

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Lisa Girion covers workplace issues for The Times. She can be reached at [email protected].