Facebook Acquires Whatsapp - Everything You Need to Know!

Facebook Acquires Whatsapp - With so much cash sprayed in Silicon Valley, it's challenging for a procurement to cause a mix. Facebook's (FB) purchase of WhatsApp last year did just that-- going beyond Google's (GOOG) $3.2 billion purchase of Nest Labs and Apple's (AAPL) $3 billion Beats Electronics procurement-- to become 2014's leading acquisition as well as among the biggest tech purchases of all time.

WhatsApp, a message messaging app utilized extensively around the world, swiped headlines with its preliminary $16 billion proposal from Facebook. In 2013, the app shed $138 million and also brought in $10.2 million in revenue. So exactly how did the company sway Facebook? This article examines Facebook's record damaging acquisition and also the actions it took to arrive.

Facebook Acquires Whatsapp

Facebook Acquires Whatsapp


It turns out he's marketed greater than 22 million shares worth roughly $2.8 billion because January.

Facebook consented to buy WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in stock, and the cost had gone up to $22 billion by October, when the bargain closed, thanks to Facebook's increasing stock cost. Koum had concerning 45% of the business when he offered it, Forbes estimates, which indicates his take on paper had to do with $10 billion. He additionally obtained 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 common stock. He also had an additional 19 million restricted stock units, which vest in time and function as an incentive for him to stay till November 2018.

Based on that vesting schedule, it looks like he's made regarding 3 numerous those RSUs thus far this year.

So on the whole, he's offered about one-third of his existing risk in Facebook this year.

Koum's stock sales come as WhatsApp continues to grow rapidly and also as the company is making changes to the service that can open brand-new moneymaking possibilities, yet likewise runs the risk of estranging some individuals.

On Thursday, Facebook introduced that WhatsApp was changing its privacy policy for the very first time because the acquisition to allow Facebook to see the telephone number that a customer shares when they register for WhatsApp. Facebook can utilize this info to enable companies to get in touch with individuals directly via WhatsApp, as they can currently do with Carrier, and will certainly enable Facebook to show more relevant advertisements to logged-in customers. However, WhatsApp said it would not share these phone numbers straight with individuals.

WhatsApp passed greater than than 1 billion monthly users in February and is the most prominent conversation application in over half of the world, according to recent statistics from SimilarWeb.

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