Whatsapp Sale to Facebook
So our asked Equilar, a business that focuses on evaluating exec payment and also business data, to assist us take a look at all the Stocks and also Exchange Commission filings pertaining to Koum's sales for 2016.
Whatsapp Sale To Facebook
It turns out he's sold greater than 22 million shares worth roughly $2.8 billion considering that January.
Facebook accepted acquire WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in stock, and also the rate had actually gone up to $22 billion by October, when the offer shut, thanks to Facebook's rising stock price. Koum possessed concerning 45% of the firm when he marketed it, Forbes approximates, which means his take on paper had to do with $10 billion. He also obtained a seat on Facebook's board.
At the end of 2015, according to Facebook's annual proxy declaring, Koum owned over 60 million shares of ordinary shares. He likewise had one more 19 million limited stock systems, which vest over time and serve as a reward for him to linger till November 2018.
Based upon that vesting routine, it resembles he's gained regarding 3 million of those RSUs so far this year.
So overall, he's marketed concerning 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 company is making changes to the solution that could open up new moneymaking opportunities, however likewise takes the chance of estranging some customers.
On Thursday, Facebook announced that WhatsApp was altering its privacy plan for the first time since the purchase to allow Facebook to see the phone number that a user shares when they sign up for WhatsApp. Facebook can use this details to permit businesses to call customers directly with WhatsApp, as they can currently do via Carrier, and also will certainly permit Facebook to show more pertinent advertisements to logged-in users. Nonetheless, WhatsApp claimed it would not share these contact number directly with individuals.
WhatsApp passed greater than than 1 billion monthly users in February and is the most prominent chat application in more than half of the globe, according to current statistics from SimilarWeb.
Facebook had no comment on the sales, as it does not discuss individuals' financial investment decisions.