Reflecting upon 2011, Monster had a productive year in terms of financial performance, customer adoption of our advanced product offerings and expanding our global reach. Nevertheless, the macroeconomic environment was mixed. Global GDP grew modestly in the first nine months of the year but decelerated in the fourth quarter. Despite this deceleration and the heightened global macroeconomic concerns, in 2011, we remained focused on pursuing our key initiatives and strengthening our financial position.
Our advanced technologies and unparalleled global reach truly differentiate Monster from its competitors and we are eager to continue to leverage our strong brand as the pioneer and leader in the industry.
These unique attributes will allow us to meet our customers’ high expectations and further strengthen our position in the marketplace.
In 2011, our Global Careers bookings increased 18% year over year and we also significantly improved our profitability, achieving an operating margin of 7% for 2011 compared to break-even in 2010. Our business demonstrated substantial operating leverage with 55% of our incremental revenue flowing through to the operating income line. Monster’s financial position remains strong with $250 million in cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet at year-end.
Specifically, in 2011 bookings were over $1.1 billion, representing a 38% increase from the depths reached in 2009. Despite this encouraging bookings and earnings growth this year, we are not satisfied with these results. During the recession of 2008-2009, we were faced with tough decisions that needed to be made and actions that needed to be taken to allow our business to continue to grow for the future. Since then, we have invested aggressively in new products, with a strong focus on expanding our technological leadership in our industry.
The result of these efforts is a product portfolio with the most advanced solutions in our industry, providing both employers and job seekers around the world the most robust and efficient tools available.
We believe our business is well-positioned to benefit from the investments we have made in technology, products and expanding our global reach. Monster will continue to roll out new products globally, while enhancing our existing product portfolio to stay one step ahead of our competitors. In 2012, the focus will be on strong execution—making sure our customers understand our products and the value they offer to their businesses.
Our new products are experiencing increased adoption. In 2011, bookings generated from our Power Resume Search® (PRS) product were approximately $100 million with roughly 30% growth over the previous year. This product, which is based on our proprietary 6Sense® advanced semantic search technology, was launched during the fourth quarter of 2009 in North America, and has been available in the UK and France for the last six months. PRS now accounts for approximately 50% of North America’s search business and nearly 20% in Europe. PRS was recently launched in Germany with plans in place to roll it out in the Netherlands later in the year.
SeeMoreTM, our next-generation 6Sense semantic search and analytics platform, provides intelligence and visibility into multiple talent pools and helps employers efficiently and precisely identify, access, and manage their talent regardless of the source. This cloudbased product has begun to gain significant traction with our customers.
Monster’s Career Ad Network® (CAN), the largest recruitment-focused ad network, reaches nearly 105 million active and passive candidates worldwide. CAN grew approximately 35% year-over-year in 2011 to just over $50 million, accounting for approximately 5% of Global Careers bookings and 8% of North America Careers bookings.
Monster’s BeKnownTM application is helping job seekers take advantage of one of the largest global networks in the world today through Facebook. We launched BeKnown mid-year and it is now available in 49 countries and 19 languages. Feedback from early adopters has been positive and we continue to add additional features and functionality while more aggressively marketing the application worldwide to drive further adoption.
Monster Government Solutions (MGS) experienced impressive growth during the year with close to $100 million in bookings.
MGS currently provides products and services to Federal, State, and Local Government agencies and all five branches of the armed services. In early 2012, we were awarded a four-year contract valued in excess of $20 million with the UK Government, which was the largest international transaction in our company’s history. We believe expanding MGS internationally represents an incremental growth opportunity.
Our product platform is unmatched, and our customers are giving us tremendously positive feedback on our new and enhanced products – from PRS to SeeMore to CAN. As a result, we are committed to more aggressively communicating our product story to the world through an increased commitment to sales and marketing.
Monster is poised to deliver for all of its stakeholders. By continuing to provide seekers with the best job opportunities available and enabling employers to source superior talent and effectively manage their existing workforce, we are well positioned to capitalize on the global trends in online recruitment.
Despite these positive attributes, we strongly believe that Monster’s shares are undervalued. Our primary responsibilities are to our customers and shareholders. For this reason, we announced in March 2012 that we are pursuing all strategic alternatives. During this process, we will continue to be laser-focused on delivering superior value to our customers by providing innovative, value-added offerings and further expanding our global reach.
We are confident that we are pursuing the right strategy to capitalize on all market opportunities to maximize shareholder value.
Thank you for your continued support.
Sal Iannuzzi
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
622 Third Avenue, 39th Floor
New York, NY 10017
ph: 212-351-7000
NYSE: MWW
The 2012 annual meeting of
stockholders will be held at
10:00 a.m. on Tuesday,
June 5, 2012
at Dechert LLP
1095 Avenue of the Americas,
28th Floor
New York, NY 10036
Chairman
Lead Independent Director
Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer
Executive Vice President,
Europe and North America Sales
Executive Vice President,
Latin America and Developing
Markets
Executive Vice President,
Global Government Solutions
Executive Vice President and
Global Chief Marketing Officer
Executive Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer
Executive Vice President,
Greater China
Executive Vice President,
Global Customer
Service and Chief
Privacy Officer
Senior Vice President,
Chief Accounting
Officer and Global Controller
Executive Vice President,
General Counsel
and Secretary
Executive Vice President and
Chief Administrative Officer
Executive Vice President,
Corporate Development
and Internet Advertising
Executive Vice President
For General Inquiries:
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
c/o Computershare
P.O. Box 358015
Pittsburgh, PA 15252-8015
1-800-851-9677 (US)
1-201-680-6578 (Outside the US)
www.computershare.com
email: shrrelations@bnymellon.com
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
Computershare
480 Washington Boulevard,
27th Floor
Jersey City, NJ 07310-1900
Lori Chaitman
Vice President
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
622 Third Avenue, 39th Floor
lori.chaitman@monster.com