ValueClick Q1: No Growth to Be Seen; 40 Jobs Lost

The recession continues to batter web advertising and lead generation provider ValueClick, with sales and profits both down, and job attrition at the company. CEO Tom Vadnais says he is in the market to acquire new companies, though.

The basics: Revenue declined 20 percent to $135 million; net income declined 31 percent to $13.2 million. Vadnais said:

… advertising spending and budget visibility remain challenged in this macroeconomic environment …

In terms of VCLK’s various businesses — media, affiliate marketing, etc. — none of them showed sales growth. The business is down across the board.

The only good news to emerge is that ValueClick is managing its expenses as its business plows through the mud. The revenue yield on every dollar it spent on operating costs rose to $2, up from $1.92, meaning it is becoming a more efficient company.

In part, that is due to job reductions. Vadnais told Wall Street:

… we have had a hiring freeze on since the end of the second quarter last year. So attrition that we’ve had, this natural attrition for the most part has not been replaced, and then we also divested a couple of our small businesses …

CFO John Pitstick: Yes, we were down about 40 headcount in total across the company. So that’s 3% or 4% of the total.

Nonetheless, Vadnais is on the prowl for new companies to buy. Doubtless he sees the market as distressed and therefore cheap:

We continue to be very interested on the M&A side and assuming more and more high quality type technology companies or service companies into our current platforms …

It’s been difficult frankly the last year or two with valuations, because as the public companies have come down in the marketplace, the private companies have not really come down in their expectations. So that’s really slowed down the M&A world, but we continue to be interested in opportunities as they come along.

• See BNET’s previous coverage of ValueClick:
• JP Morgan: Web Ad Economy Could Recover by End of 2009
• ValueClick Execs Got $12.4 Million Pay Raise Despite Missing Performance Targets
• ValueClick Q4: Recession Arrives on the Web and It Ain’t Pretty
• ValueClick Exec Publicly Crucified Over E-Mail Error
• Microsoft’s New “Private” Anti-Advertising Browser Turns Out to Be Not That Private
• Gawker’s Denton Sweats Over Decline in Web Ad Revenues
• Web Ad Economy Faces Recession … Possibly
• Q&A: ValueClick’s Ardis on Where Client Money Is Going