Over coffee today, Silicon Valley lawyer Warren Lazarow was telling VentureBeat that merger and acquisition activity is “out of control….there’s more action right now than during the boom.”
A few minutes later, Lazarow, a leading lawyer at O’Melveny & Myers, looked down at his Blackberry, and became transfixed by an email. He got up and, as if in a trance, wandered out of the Woodside Bakery, not once taking his eye off the Blackberry. A deal was apparently underway.
We’re not sure if it had to do with the latest rumor: Google is considering buying Job search engine SimplyHired. It could have been that, or one of countless others: Microsoft and Yahoo are also talking (WSJ subscription required). Yesterday, San Jose’s Adobe Systems said it would acquire Scene7, a Novato, Calif. start-up that helps retailers add rich media to their Web sites (see announcement). Cisco, it seems, is buying a company every couple of weeks. Deal lawyers are in hot demand. In the past few weeks, lawyer rates have gone up between $10 and $80 an hour, depending on seniority. Salaries for 25-year-old, first-year lawyers are $160,000 base.
Back to the latest news, re Google. It comes from comments made by Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdry, who reportedly said Google “is stepping up its efforts to buy VC-backed SimplyHired,” as cited by TheAlarmClock. We haven’t confirmed anything, this is definitely rumor for now. Remember, everyone talks with everyone in this environment.
SimplyHired recently launched its job-o-matic service, which lets bloggers create their own job boards, and they signed deals to power MySpace and LinkedIn jobs. SimplyHired has raised $17.7 million from Fox Interactive Media (News Corp), Foundation Capital and others, most recently at a rumored sub-$40 million post money valuation. See our coverage here.
Three million came from early Google advisor Rajeev Motwani and investor Ron Conway, so the Google connection is there already. SimplyHired faces stiff competition from multiple sites, including Monster, HotJobs, Craigslist, Indeed and Jobster.
Tags: co:google, co:OMelveny-&-Myers, co:SimplyHired, lawyers, people:Warren-Lazarow7 Comments
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Charles said:
Unless there is a very large backlog of deals that haven’t been announced but have actually closed, I think the M&A rumor mill is wildly outpacing the actual number of closed transactions. Without a viable IPO market for most of these companies, M&A is the only way most of these companies will achieve liquidity. There’s no harm in speculating and deals can fall apart at the last minute, but I think a lot of the M&A hype is wishful thinking as opposed to reflective of real substantive conversations.
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Gal Josefsberg said:
Makes sense. People will always be interested in jobs and Google will always be interested in new content with which to present ads. Heck, it makes more sense than the YouTube purchase.
GJ
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Glenn Kelman said:
Efforts to compete with Wall Street bonuses are what’s driving M&A lawyers’ salaries in New York and the Bay Area.
Glenn Kelman, CEO, Redfin
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Wen said:
Matt, any chance you can eliminate links in the comments? It seems to result in people offering trite comments in order to promote their sites…
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Kevin said:
Please check the link posted for Craigslist.
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Matt Marshall said:
I cut out the offending link from the comment, i’ll think about elimination going forward. Also, corrected link to Craigslist.
Thx.
4 Trackbacks
5:37 am
Its an M&A world after all « Sharing the truth one thread at a time said:
[...] Google wants to buy SimplyHired. I am guess $M not $B. [...]
8:35 am
Acquisizioni: Google sta valutando se acquisire SimplyHired | Stalkk.ed said:
[...] Internet. E si tratta di un qualcosa di molto positivo: non c’è alcun dubbio in merito. Un articolo apparso oggi su VentureBeat riporta una dichiarazione di un avvocato che opera nella Silicon [...]
7:43 am
Leveraging Ideas :: The Blog of Sam Huleatt: social media, technology and startups said:
[...] searching across many websites such as Craigslist and Wetfeet.com and aggregating all the results. Venturebeat also has a first-hand account of the breaking [...]
5:52 pm
Google in discussions to acquire job search engine SimplyHired? : Alootechie said:
[...] Google is rumoured to be in discussions to acquire job search engine SimplyHired.com, which recently launched Job-a-matic that enables bloggers to create their own job boards. SimplyHired has raised $17.7 million, including $13.5 million from News Corp, and the company’s valuation has been pegged at $40 million. Simply Hired president Dion Lim has told TechCrunch that there is “lots of interest in us” from a number of parties but would not comment directly on the rumoured deal. SimplyHired faces stiff competition from multiple sites, including Monster, HotJobs, Craigslist, Indeed and Jobster, reports VentureBeat. [...]