Shares in HotJobs.com Ltd were coolly received on the Nasdaq market after the New York-based internet job recruitment service sold three million shares at $8 each in an initial public offering. In what amounts to another indication of the flagging appeal of internet issues recently, the shares opened at $8 and traded as low as $7.50 before closing the day at $7.625, or nearly 5% below the offering price. Total volume for the opening session was also anemic by typical IPO standards, as 4.77 million shares changed hands.
The offering price itself was below an already-lowered range of $9 to $11 per share, down from an initial range of $12 to $14. In addition, on Monday the company had cut the size of the offering from 4.75 million shares in total. When the company initially filed with the SEC for the offering in June it had been looking to sell up to $69m worth of stock. All of the shares were sold by the company through an underwriting group managed by Deutsche Banc Alex Brown, BancBoston Robertson Stephens, SG Cowen and E*Offering and are trading under the symbol HOTJ.
Separately, HotJobs announced the appointment of three new executives to its senior management team. The newcomers are George Nassef as chief information officer, Simon Goddard as vice president of sales and John S. Rusak as vice president and controller. According to regulatory filings, the company lost $1.6m last year on revenue of $4.2m. Its main competitor is privately-held Monster.com Inc, which has used prominently-placed television ads to attain a somewhat higher profile.
