Facebook Buys Whatsapp

Facebook Buys Whatsapp - WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum, that marketed his firm to Facebook in 2014, has been dumping Facebook supply at a constant clip under a prescheduled trading strategy, with new sales a number of times a month, considering that February 2016.

Facebook Buys Whatsapp

So our asked Equilar, a firm that concentrates on assessing executive settlement and also business data, to aid us analyze all the Stocks and Exchange Payment filings pertaining to Koum's sales for 2016.

Facebook Buys Whatsapp


It ends up he's offered more 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, as well as the price had gone up to $22 billion by October, when the offer closed, thanks to Facebook's increasing stock price. Koum possessed about 45% of the company when he offered it, Forbes estimates, which implies his take on paper had to do with $10 billion. He additionally got a seat on Facebook's board.

At the end of 2015, according to Facebook's yearly proxy filing, Koum owned over 60 million shares of ordinary shares. He also had an additional 19 million restricted supply units, which vest in time and also serve as a reward for him to linger up until November 2018.

Based upon that vesting routine, it appears like he's made concerning 3 numerous those RSUs so far this year.

So overall, he's sold regarding one-third of his existing risk in Facebook this year.

Koum's stock sales come as WhatsApp remains to grow rapidly and also as the firm is making changes to the solution that could open new moneymaking chances, yet likewise takes the chance of alienating some users.

On Thursday, Facebook revealed that WhatsApp was transforming its personal privacy plan for the first time because the acquisition to enable Facebook to see the phone number that an individual shares when they sign up for WhatsApp. Facebook can utilize this info to enable businesses to get in touch with users straight via WhatsApp, as they can currently do via Carrier, and will certainly permit Facebook to reveal more appropriate ads to logged-in individuals. Nonetheless, WhatsApp claimed it would not share these telephone number directly with individuals.

WhatsApp passed more than than 1 billion month-to-month individuals in February and is the most popular chat app in majority of the world, according to recent statistics from SimilarWeb.

Facebook had no discuss the sales, as it doesn't discuss individuals' financial investment decisions.