Whatsapp sold to Facebook - Everything You Need to Know!

Whatsapp Sold To Facebook - With so much money thrown around in Silicon Valley, it's not easy for an acquisition to cause a stir. Facebook's (FB) acquisition of WhatsApp last year did just that-- surpassing Google's (GOOG) $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest Labs and also Apple's (AAPL) $3 billion Beats Electronic devices purchase-- to come to be 2014's leading purchase as well as among the biggest tech purchases of all time.

WhatsApp, a text messaging application used extensively around the world, stole headlines with its initial $16 billion bid from Facebook. In 2013, the application shed $138 million and brought in $10.2 million in earnings. So how did the business sway Facebook? This article takes a look at Facebook's record breaking purchase and also the steps it required to get there.

Whatsapp Sold To Facebook

It turns out he's sold greater than 22 million shares worth approximately $2.8 billion considering that January.

Facebook consented to buy WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in stock, and also the price had risen to $22 billion by October, when the deal closed, thanks to Facebook's climbing stock rate. Koum possessed regarding 45% of the firm when he sold it, Forbes approximates, which suggests his take on paper was about $10 billion. He additionally got a seat on Facebook's board.

At the end of 2015, according to Facebook's annual proxy declaring, Koum possessed over 60 million shares of common stock. He likewise had an additional 19 million restricted supply devices, which vest gradually and function as a reward for him to stay until November 2018.

Based upon that vesting timetable, it resembles he's earned about 3 countless those RSUs so far this year.

So overall, he's marketed about one-third of his current stake in Facebook this year.

Koum's stock sales come as WhatsApp continues to proliferate and as the firm is making changes to the service that could open up new moneymaking chances, yet likewise takes the chance of pushing away some users.

On Thursday, Facebook revealed that WhatsApp was altering its personal privacy policy for the first time given that the purchase to allow Facebook to see the contact number that a user shares when they sign up for WhatsApp. Facebook can use this details to allow businesses to speak to individuals straight through WhatsApp, as they can currently do through Carrier, as well as will allow Facebook to show even more pertinent ads to logged-in users. Nevertheless, WhatsApp said it would not share these telephone number directly with users.

WhatsApp passed more than than 1 billion regular monthly customers in February as well as is the most popular chat application in over half of the globe, according to recent statistics from SimilarWeb.

Facebook had no comment on the sales, as it does not discuss peoples' financial investment choices.

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