StepStone ASA (www.stepstone.com) has announced the acquisition of Careerportal (www.careerportal.nl), a service for sharing candidates across professional recruitment, search and selection agencies. This addition to StepStone’s portfolio provides a high value service to recruitment agencies, and represents an important step in creating an expanding family of online recruitment solutions. Today, Careerportal operates in Netherlands; moving forward StepStone intends to introduce this product to its agency customers in other markets across Europe.
Careerportal enables recruitment and selection agencies to share information about recently interviewed candidates. Participating agencies can log on to a database to access details of a large pool of qualified and immediately employable job seekers. Access to this pool helps them to win assignments and then to fill vacancies faster and more frequently. Careerportal also enables them to successfully place and satisfy a higher proportion of the candidates that they have interviewed.
Careerportal pioneered this innovative business model and is the largest operator in the Netherlands. More than 30 agencies, including Brunel, E-People and Interselling Search, are now using the network. Thanks to a pool of over 180 recruitment consultants, hundreds of contacts with candidates from the network are established every month. This helps participating agencies increase the chances of success for both prospective employers and job candidates.
Commenting on this move Colin Tenwick, StepStone’s CEO, stated: In Careerportal we have found a strong team, running an innovative business with tremendous opportunities for growth. Within the StepStone group, we believe we can significantly accelerate Careerportal’s success across Europe.
Bram Polak, founder and MD of Careerportal, added: I’m very enthusiastic about becoming part of StepStone. By joining with the European market leader, our organisation will gain a great deal of extra competitive edge. Participating agencies are certainly going to benefit. With the resources of the StepStone group, especially at the technical and marketing level, we can develop and enhance our network even further.
Terms of the Acquisition
StepStone will acquire 100% of the share capital of Careerportal for an initial cash payment of 700,000. Further payments, up to a maximum of 1.3m, will be due dependent on the Careerportal business achieving certain defined targets during 2002 and 2003. These additional payments will be in a mixture of cash and shares, with the majority of any shares being issued at an agreed value of NOK 0.15 per share.
The transaction is subject to final regulatory approval under the Dutch Securities Supervision Act 1995.
StepStone acquires Careerportal
Innovative service to recruitment agencies becomes part of StepStone
