The Dutch recruitment agency Randstad has continued its acquisition drive in the digital world by buying one of the big names of the dotcom era, Monster.
The deal is worth around $429 million, representing a per-share price of $3.40. Monster Worldwide (MWW), which runs the heavily trafficked Monster.com service and was making acquisitions of its own as recently as two months ago, will continue to operate as an independent entity under its own name.
“With its industry leading technology platform and easy to use digital, social and mobile solutions, Monster is a natural complement to Randstad,” Randstad (RANJY) CEO Jacques van den Broek said in a statement.
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Meanwhile, Monster CEO Tim Yates said the deal would leave his company “better positioned to fulfill our core mission, and our employees will benefit from becoming part of a larger, more diversified company.”
“Equally important, this transaction offers immediate value to our shareholders,” Yates added.
Randstad is big—it claims to place around 2 million people in new job each year. It’s also a growing outfit.
In June, Randstad bought the German freelancing platform Twago, which has half a million people on its books, and the Tokyo-based Careo Group. The month before, it paid out €102.5 million ($113.6 million) for Italy’s Obiettive Lavoro.
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The Monster price is worth a 22.7% premium to its closing stock price on Monday, but it’s a far cry from the $91 a Monster share was commanding back in 2000.
Even in 2012, when speculation was rife about Monster shopping itself around, people were talking about a buyer shelling out something in the $14-$15 range.