MediaNews Group Inc., the largest shareholder in Monster Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: MWW), opposes the sale of the jobs site to global staffing provider Randstad Holding nv, stating the deal undervalues the company. Earlier this month, Randstad agreed to acquire Monster for an enterprise value of approximately $429 million.

MediaNews Group, a newspaper company with more than $1 billion in revenue, has an 11.6% ownership stake in Monster’s shares and says it is the largest shareholder based on publicly available information. The firm urged other shareholders not to tender stock at this time.

“We initially established a position in Monster some time ago because we believed the stock was tremendously undervalued relative to its long-term prospects,” MediaNews wrote in a letter to Monster’s board of directors. “We continue to strongly believe that this is the case and that the deal with Randstad at $3.40 per share significantly undervalues the company. It is our view that with proper focus on operational efficiency, revenue stabilization and monetization of non-core assets, Monster can achieve a stock price of $6-$8 per share over the next 18 months. Therefore, we DO NOT intend to tender our shares in the upcoming tender and we urge all other Monster shareholders to follow suit. We encourage other shareholders to contact us to discuss their views on the Company and the proposed transaction. Additionally, given the extremely low valuation, we intend to exercise our appraisal rights if the Randstad deal closes.”

MediaNews’ letter provided five recommendations:

• Reduce expenses by $100-$150 million through implementation of operational best practices.
• Monetize non-core/underperforming assets that are not being valued in current stock price.
• Reduce capital expenditures to be more in line with competitors and other digital companies
• Simplify the product offering and increase sales productivity.
• Focus marketing efforts on B2B customer acquisition and candidate acquisition, with a focus on ROI, and execute a rebranding campaign to attract millennials.