Ireland’s Saongroup Acquires 90% Stake In ChinaHR.com; Half Staff Will Lose Jobs

Ireland’s Saongroup.com reached an agreement before the Chinese New Year began with America’s Monster for the acquisition of its Chinese Internet recruitment subsidiary ChinaHR.com.

After the acquisition, Saongroup will have a 90% stake in ChinaHR.com, while Monster will only maintain a 10% stake. The financial details for the deal has not yet been disclosed.

In 2005, Monster invested USD50 million in the acquisition of a 40% stake in ChinaHR.com. At the beginning of 2006, Monster invested an additional USD19.9 million for a 5% stake. In October 2008, the company acquired the remaining 55% stake in the Chinese website for USD174 million, making it a fully-owned subsidiary. However, the performance of ChinaHR.com has been unsatisfactory over the past few years. Monster reportedly made net losses of USD194.2 million in the third quarter of 2012, of which USD233 million was attributed to the losses of ChinaHR.com.

With the acquisition, ChinaHR.com may be merged with Saongroup’s recruitment website Myjob.com and a new company will reportedly be established.

Before the completion of the acquisition, ChinaHR.com will implement large-scale layoffs. In its Chinese headquarters and North China region, half of its over 400 employees will apparently lose their jobs.

According to public files, Ireland’s Saongroup was founded in 1995 and headquartered in Dublin. Starting from 1999, the company implemented its global expansion and established branches in 27 countries and regions. Prior to this, Saongroup acquired several local recruitment websites in China to realize its distribution across this marketplace.