William Blair & Company Initiates Coverage of Dice Holdings, Inc. With Outperform Rating

Business Wire, August 22, 2008

CHICAGO -- William Blair & Company initiated research coverage of Dice Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:DHX) ($8.82), a leading global provider of online recruiting services, with an Outperform rating and an Aggressive Growth company profile. Dice Holdings' operations consist of four Web sites, each of which is focused on employers and job-seekers in a specific industry. Most of the company's revenue is generated by Dice.com and eFinancialCareers.com, which are the leading vertically focused Web sites in the technology and capital markets industries, respectively.

Analyst Timothy McHugh estimated that the company would earn $0.32 per share in 2008, $0.27 per share in 2009, and $0.42 per share in 2010.

"We believe that demand for online recruitment services will benefit during the next few years from a continued shift in recruitment advertising spending from newspapers to the Internet, steady increases in job turnover, a shortage of qualified workers due to the retirement of the baby boomer generation, and an eventual cyclical improvement in the labor market," McHugh said. "Underlying the growth of the online recruiting industry, we believe specialized career Web sites are growing slightly faster than the overall industry right now. Dice's focus on specific industries tends to produce a more-targeted set of job-seekers and employment opportunities, and better attracts higher-end and passive job-seekers. We believe these attributes are attractive to customers, which are becoming more sophisticated about analyzing the return on investment from online recruiting."

McHugh continued, "The online recruitment industry is an evolving industry, so competition will remain fierce. In addition, both the timing and pace of an eventual economic recovery remain difficult to predict. We believe, however, that Dice Holdings' experienced management team, established brands, vertical-industry focus, and attractive growth opportunities leave it well positioned to cope with these risks. We thus believe that Dice Holdings will generate solid revenue and earnings growth during the next few years."

William Blair & Company, L.L.C. has received compensation for investment banking services from the company within the past 12 months, or expects to receive or intends to seek compensation for investment banking services in the next 3 months.

William Blair & Company, L.L.C. is a market maker in the security of this company and may have a long or short position.

William Blair & Company, L.L.C. (www.williamblair.com) is a Chicago-based investment firm offering investment banking, asset management, equity research, institutional and private brokerage, and private capital to individual, institutional, and issuing clients. Since 1935, we have been committed to helping clients achieve their financial objectives. As an independent, employee-owned firm, our philosophy is to serve our clients' interests first and foremost.

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