Facebook Buys Whatsapp

Facebook Buys Whatsapp - WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum, who sold his firm to Facebook in 2014, has been discharging Facebook supply at a constant clip under a prescheduled trading plan, with brand-new sales numerous times a month, given that February 2016.

Facebook Buys Whatsapp

So our asked Equilar, a business that focuses on evaluating exec settlement as well as business information, to aid us analyze all the Securities and also Exchange Commission filings pertaining to Koum's sales for 2016.

Facebook Buys Whatsapp


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

Facebook accepted acquire WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in supply, as well as the cost had actually increased to $22 billion by October, when the offer shut, thanks to Facebook's climbing stock cost. Koum possessed about 45% of the business when he sold it, Forbes approximates, which implies 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 yearly proxy filing, Koum had over 60 million shares of common stock. He also had another 19 million limited supply devices, which vest in time and also work as a reward for him to stay up until November 2018.

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

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

Koum's supply sales come as WhatsApp continues to proliferate and as the firm is making changes to the solution that can open up brand-new moneymaking opportunities, yet additionally takes the chance of pushing away some customers.

On Thursday, Facebook announced that WhatsApp was transforming its privacy plan for the first time since the acquisition to allow Facebook to see the telephone number that a user shares when they enroll in WhatsApp. Facebook can use this info to enable services to call users directly with WhatsApp, as they can already do with Messenger, as well as will allow Facebook to reveal more appropriate advertisements to logged-in users. However, WhatsApp stated it would certainly not share these telephone number straight with individuals.

WhatsApp passed more than than 1 billion regular monthly individuals in February and also is one of the most preferred conversation application in majority of the world, according to recent statistics from SimilarWeb.

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