Seek (SEK)

Shares / Stock Code

SEK

Stock Exchange / Sharemarket

ax

Seek (SEK) is a leading media company principally focused on online employment classified advertising, with operations in Australia and New Zealand. The Company also offers online training courses to individuals in Australia, New Zealand and UK. Seek listed on the ASX on 19th April, 2005. The inclusion of the SEEK in the ASX/S&P 200 Index occurred in September 2005. To date, Seek has around 400 people employed. In Australia, around 60% of the overall Internet and newspaper job advertisements are posted through Seek’s website, seek.com.au. In New Zealand, more than 20,000 job ads are posted through its website, seek.co.nz. The Seek website also offers jobs seeking in the areas of healthcare, government & defence and education & training. In October 2007, the Company acquired a 50% share in Amadeus Education Holdings Pty Ltd. The total income generated by the Company during the year ended June 2008, was $210.2m million, with EBITDA of $109.8 million. SEEK offers a number of sub-sites to facilitate job browsing, which include Seek Executive, Seek IT, Seek NZ, Seek UK, Seek Volunteer, Seek Learning, Seek Commercial.

Seek enjoys a strong presence in the online employment and training market of Australia and New Zealand, in terms of both job ad and jobseeker numbers. At present, the average number of its monthly customers is around 15,000, with more than 200,000 job ads posted at any one time. In September 2008, SEK won the runner up Best Employer award in Australia and New Zealand. SEK also received the award for one of the eight best companies to work for in Australia by the Great Place To Work Institute in July 2008.

Seek History

Seek was created in November 1997, with Paul Bassat, Andrew Bassat and Matthew Rockman being the founders of the Company. In March 1998, the Company launched Seek.com.au. Later Seek entered New Zealand market by launching its site, seek.co.nz in 1999. In early 2004, SEK acquired the New Zealand's second most popular Internet employment site, nzjobs.com.nz, which helped it in achieving a strong presence in the NZ job market. It entered into the complementary training and development industry in 2004, through the acquisition of SelfCert, an online training company and branded it as Seek Learning. In 2007, the Company commenced investing in employment sites in China, Brazil and Malaysia, through acquisitions of minority stakes.