The reporter confirmed from Zhaopin that it indeed moved and also recognized a loss last year, but it denied the existence of correlations between these two.

Zhaopin confirmed except the head-hunter department, all others moved out.

Recently, some net users in the online forum disclosed: Zhaopin sufferred from huge losses, had been prepared to move out old office.

Reporters yesterday at Zhaopin’s old “home” – Beijing Jianguo Road, Hui Tong Times Square-saw a packages of baggage, containers, cardboard boxes to be delivered under the banner of tape at the work area of Zhaopin, and a number of departments had left.

Zhaopin Hui Tong Times Square has been operating for many years, and it leased three sites at Hui Tong Times Square separately. This time it will move to the International Center of Fosun at the core area of CBD. Zhaopin staff confirmed that except the headhunters department, all others would be removed.

Lease term ended, moved to the core area of CBD

Regarding the specific reasons for the moving, Zhaopin PR person in charge Li Peihan stressed: “In spite of rumors that the move is relevant to its loss last year, while actually because term at Hui Tong Times Square ended.”

She also said that the Times Square was outside the East Third Ring, while the company moved to inside entering into the core area of CBD district, which would help Zhilian better integrate into the CBD shopping district, and better communicate between the various enterprises, making Zhaopin more close with our customers.

She also gave another reason: “Our offices at Times Square scattered at three buildings, the new office site is more concentrated, conducive to better communication between employees.” However, about rental price and size, she refused to disclose to reporters.

Reporter knew from Hui Tong Times Square area that the current rent in Plaza was 4-5 yuan / sq m / day, and before Zhaopin leased more than 6000 square meters in area. New rent equivalent to 3 yuan / sqm / day.

Zhaopin moving to the new “home”-Fosun International Center-heading west shopping district, is a 10-minute walk to Subway Line No. 10 of East Third Ring, Chaoyang North Road Rapid Transit Bus Road, aligned with the Jing Guang Center, CCTV, in the mixed locations of several major eastern shopping district.

However, according to media reports, as a result of the Center’s location was in junction of Chaoyang North Road, East Third Ring and the East Bridge, there were no middle-grade facilities and other high-end Class A office space, together with the financial crisis, many multinational companies withdrew from the CBD, rent of this shopping district was all the way down, Fosun International Center leasing market was also deserted.

According to the Fosun International Center data before, Zhaopin rented No. 6 ~ 7 of the 4300 square meters floor area, to become the largest customer of the center.

Fosun International Center, outernal price was 240 yuan/ square meter / month, but the actual rents of Zhaopin was about 170 yuan / square meter / month.

And previously the media reported that in the 60 months of the lease term, the Zhaopin got 30 months rent-free period, so the actual price dropped by half again, about 3 yuan / sq m / day.

Qiang Cheng Wu You, China HR and Zhilian are known as three competitive national online recruitment but were very homogeneous.

Zhaopin’s largest shareholder-Australian Seek-in March this year announced a financial report indicating last year in Zhaopin Seek investment had loss of 14.47 million Australian dollars, and in accordance with Zhaopin Seek shares ratio, Zhaopin was supposed to have a loss of about 1.7 billion yuan in 2008. Zhaopin’s moving made people correlated the huge losses with it.

Zhaopin CEO Liu Hao in media interviews recognized a loss, but denied it was 170 million, nor did he disclose specific figures.

Reporters knew from Nelson’s business CR-Nielsen that Zhaopin last year invested 0.27 billion yuan, a large amount of money spent signing host Huang Jianxiang and actress Xu Jinglei for endorsement. Head of its Public Relations-Li Peihan-said after the expiry of their contracts, this year Huang would not renew their contracts.

Early in March this year, the operations of three domestic online recruitment sites were successively exposed and Qian Cheng Wu You was the only one that made profits. The China HR’s loss of year was as high as 175 million yuan, almost same as Zhaopin.

This is the first acquisition that Seek has ever conducted out of Australia and New Zealand. Seek warned that the transaction may place a negative influence on the company’s income per share in 2007.

Andrew Basset, joint CEO of Seek, told local media that Seek will provide operational and strategic support to Zhaopin.com after the acquisition to help the Chinese firm increase its market share in China.

Zhaopin.com is a Beijing based online recruitment company opened in 1997. The company says its growth has been increasing by more than 100% in the past three years. It faced uncertainty six years ago when its founders were unceremoniously deposed by investors and quickly lost its footing against rival 51job.com (JOBS), which is a NASDAQ-listed firm. However over the last few years it has slowly regained its stature within China with the help of CEO Liu Hao.

Analysys International’s recently released report ”China’s Online Recruiting Market Quarterly Tracker 2006 Q2,” shows China’s online recruiting market had reached RMB160.9 Million in the second quarter of 2006.

According to Analysys International’s research, China’s online recruiting market had reached RMB160.9 million in the quarter with a growth of 8.44% over the last quarter. Among which, online recruiting revenue from recruiting websites, whose services are targeted at national scope, took 76.4% of the overall market size, and revenue from recruiting websites with services targeted at the provincial scope took 19.3%.

Source : Chinatechnews