Did Facebook Buy Whatsapp

Did Facebook Buy Whatsapp - WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum, who sold his firm to Facebook in 2014, has actually been dumping Facebook stock at a steady clip under a prescheduled trading strategy, with new sales numerous times a month, because February 2016.

Facebook Buys Whatsapp

So our asked Equilar, a business that focuses on evaluating exec settlement as well as company data, to assist us examine all the Securities as well as Exchange Compensation filings related to Koum's sales for 2016.

Did Facebook Buy Whatsapp


It ends up he's marketed greater than 22 million shares worth about $2.8 billion since January.

Facebook agreed to acquire WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in stock, and also the price had actually increased to $22 billion by October, when the deal closed, thanks to Facebook's rising supply rate. Koum had regarding 45% of the firm when he offered it, Forbes estimates, which indicates his take on paper had to do with $10 billion. He likewise got a seat on Facebook's board.

At the end of 2015, according to Facebook's annual proxy declaring, Koum had over 60 million shares of common stock. He also had another 19 million limited stock systems, which vest over time and work as a reward for him to linger till November 2018.

Based on that vesting routine, it appears like he's made regarding 3 million of those RSUs so far this year.

So generally, he's offered concerning one-third of his current stake in Facebook this year.

Koum's supply 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 estranging some individuals.

On Thursday, Facebook revealed that WhatsApp was altering its personal privacy policy for the first time because the procurement to permit Facebook to see the phone number that a customer shares when they register for WhatsApp. Facebook can use this info to allow organisations to speak to individuals straight through WhatsApp, as they can currently do via Messenger, as well as will enable Facebook to reveal even more appropriate advertisements to logged-in customers. However, WhatsApp said it would certainly not share these contact number straight with customers.

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

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