DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Monster Worldwide Inc.'s (MWW) first-quarter loss widened as the
online job-search company's revenue slid even as bookings picked
up.
Shares slid 6.4% to $16.75 in after-hours trading as the company
projected a steeper-than-expected drop in current-quarter
revenue.
Still, Chairman and Chief Executive Sal Iannuzzi said Monster's
underlying fundamentals "turned the corner" and showed solid
improvement across geographies and sales channels.
Monster announced in February a deal to buy rival HotJobs from
Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) for $225 million, including a three-year traffic
agreement between the companies. The deal is expected to add to
Monster's adjusted earnings after this year, and would lead to an
increase in job matches and search efficiencies, among other
things.
Monster posted a loss of $24.2 million, or 20 cents a share,
compared with a year-earlier loss of $10.3 million, or 9 cents a
share. Excluding severance and other charges, the loss was 14
cents. Revenue dropped 15% to $215.3 million, while bookings
increased 17% to $219 million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated a 15-cent loss on
revenue of $213 million.
Deferred revenue at the end of the quarter was $305 million,
down 12% from a year earlier and basically unchanged from $306
million at the start of 2010. A sequential increase in the fourth
quarter signaled to some that Monster's business had bottomed.
For the second quarter, the company guided for a loss between 2
cents and 6 cents a share on a revenue drop of 2% to 6%. Wall
Street projected a 1% revenue drop.
For the year, Monster is looking for a loss of 12 cents to 20
cents on flat revenue, plus or minus 2 percentage points. Analysts
forecast a 1% decline.
-By Yogita Patel and Lauren Pollock, Dow Jones Newswires;
212-416-2356; lauren.pollock@dowjones.com