Is Whatsapp sold to Facebook
So our asked Equilar, a firm that focuses on assessing executive settlement as well as corporate data, to aid us check out all the Securities and Exchange Compensation filings pertaining to Koum's sales for 2016.
Is Whatsapp Sold To Facebook
It turns out he's marketed more than 22 million shares worth approximately $2.8 billion given that January.
Facebook accepted acquire WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in stock, and the rate had actually increased to $22 billion by October, when the offer closed, thanks to Facebook's increasing supply price. Koum possessed regarding 45% of the company when he marketed it, Forbes estimates, which means his take on paper was about $10 billion. He likewise obtained 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 ordinary shares. He also had another 19 million restricted stock devices, which vest over time and also function as a reward for him to stick around up until November 2018.
Based upon that vesting schedule, it looks like he's made regarding 3 countless those RSUs up until now this year.
So overall, he's marketed about one-third of his existing stake in Facebook this year.
Koum's supply sales come as WhatsApp remains to grow rapidly and as the firm is making changes to the solution that can open up brand-new moneymaking opportunities, but additionally takes the chance of estranging some customers.
On Thursday, Facebook introduced that WhatsApp was changing its personal privacy policy for the very first time considering that the acquisition to allow Facebook to see the telephone number that a user shares when they sign up for WhatsApp. Facebook can use this details to allow services to contact customers directly with WhatsApp, as they can currently do with Messenger, and will enable Facebook to reveal even more appropriate ads to logged-in users. Nevertheless, WhatsApp claimed it would not share these telephone number directly with customers.
WhatsApp passed greater than than 1 billion regular monthly individuals in February and is one of the most preferred conversation app in over half of the globe, according to current statistics from SimilarWeb.
Facebook had no talk about the sales, as it doesn't comment on peoples' financial investment decisions.