Trinity Mirror bolsters online operation

Trinity Mirror today became the latest newspaper publisher to strengthen its position in the online jobs market.

The owner of the Daily Mirror has agreed a £50.5m (€74m) deal for the acquisition of London-based hotgroup, which operates the workthing.com and hotonline.com websites and is believed to be the UK’s second-largest online recruitment business in terms of traffic.

Trinity Mirror last year sold its regional newspaper businesses in Ireland - Century Press and Publishing Limited and the Derry Journal Limited - to venture capital group 3i.

The deal comes as job adverts are increasingly shifted online to create a market in the UK that is expected to double in value to £269m (€395m) by next year.

Revenues from online recruitment advertising grew by 53% last year and Trinity Mirror believes jobs posted on the internet now account for 9% of the total market for hiring in the UK.

Last month, Trinity Mirror paid £10.45m (€15.3m) for Financial Jobs Online and has seen a number of its biggest rivals make similar purchases.

Daily Mail & General Trust last week bought Zambeasy and Office Recruit, which publish Top-Consultant.com and officerecruit.co.uk respectively, for £4.1m (€6m). FTSE 100 firm Emap has also been on the acquisitions trail.

Today’s deal reduces the reliance of Trinity Mirror on firms placing advertisements in its print media at a time when concerns are growing about the strength of the UK economy.

Evidence from the industry suggests companies are cutting back on their advertising budgets because of the weakness in consumer confidence.

Trinity Mirror owns more than 250 local, regional and national titles including the Mirror newspapers, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail in Scotland, the Liverpool Echo and Birmingham Evening Mail.

Its online network currently has 2.23 million registered users in its database, with the CVs of more than one million candidates able to be viewed.

The websites typically advertise between 30,000 and 40,000 jobs for customers including cellphone operator T-Mobile, fast food giant McDonald’s and DIY retailer B&Q.

Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror, said: “We see exciting opportunities for the management and continued development of the hotgroup alongside our existing recruitment advertising businesses.”