Facebook Acquires Whatsapp - Everything You Need to Know!

Facebook Acquires Whatsapp - With so much cash sprayed in Silicon Valley, it's not easy for an acquisition to cause a stir. Facebook's (FB) purchase of WhatsApp in 2014 did just that-- surpassing Google's (GOOG) $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest Labs as well as Apple's (AAPL) $3 billion Beats Electronic devices procurement-- to come to be 2014's leading acquisition and one of the biggest technology buys of perpetuity.

WhatsApp, a message messaging app made use of widely around the world, took headlines with its preliminary $16 billion quote from Facebook. In 2013, the app shed $138 million and also brought in $10.2 million in revenue. So just how did the firm win over Facebook? This write-up checks out Facebook's document damaging acquisition and also the steps it took to get there.

Facebook Acquires Whatsapp

It ends up he's offered greater than 22 million shares worth approximately $2.8 billion given that January.

Facebook agreed to purchase WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in supply, and also the price had actually risen to $22 billion by October, when the bargain shut, thanks to Facebook's increasing stock price. Koum owned regarding 45% of the firm when he sold it, Forbes estimates, which suggests his take on paper was about $10 billion. He likewise got a seat on Facebook's board.

At the end of 2015, according to Facebook's yearly proxy declaring, Koum had over 60 million shares of ordinary shares. He also had one more 19 million restricted stock systems, which vest in time as well as serve as an incentive for him to linger until November 2018.

Based on that vesting timetable, it looks like he's gained regarding 3 countless those RSUs up until now this year.

So in general, he's sold concerning one-third of his current risk in Facebook this year.

Koum's supply sales come as WhatsApp remains to proliferate and also as the business is making changes to the solution that might open new moneymaking opportunities, yet also takes the chance of alienating some customers.

On Thursday, Facebook introduced that WhatsApp was changing its privacy policy for the first time because the acquisition to allow Facebook to see the telephone number that a user shares when they enroll in WhatsApp. Facebook can use this information to permit organisations to contact individuals straight with WhatsApp, as they can currently do with Messenger, and also will certainly permit Facebook to reveal more relevant ads to logged-in individuals. Nevertheless, WhatsApp stated it would certainly not share these telephone number straight with users.

WhatsApp passed more than than 1 billion monthly individuals in February and is the most preferred conversation application in over half of the globe, according to recent stats from SimilarWeb.

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

Tweet