Is Whatsapp sold to Facebook
So our asked Equilar, a company that concentrates on examining executive compensation and also company information, to aid us check out all the Securities as well as Exchange Compensation filings pertaining to Koum's sales for 2016.
Is Whatsapp Sold To Facebook
It turns out he's sold greater than 22 million shares worth about $2.8 billion because January.
Facebook agreed to buy WhatsApp in February 2014 for over $19 billion in stock, and also the rate had actually risen to $22 billion by October, when the deal closed, thanks to Facebook's climbing stock rate. Koum possessed about 45% of the company when he offered it, Forbes estimates, which means his take on paper was about $10 billion. He also got a seat on Facebook's board.
At the end of 2015, according to Facebook's yearly proxy declaring, Koum had over 60 million shares of common stock. He also had another 19 million limited supply systems, which vest over time as well as act as a motivation for him to linger till November 2018.
Based on that vesting timetable, it appears like he's gained regarding 3 million of those RSUs until now this year.
So overall, he's sold about one-third of his current stake in Facebook this year.
Koum's supply sales come as WhatsApp continues to proliferate and also as the business is making changes to the service that can open up new moneymaking chances, however also runs the risk of pushing away some users.
On Thursday, Facebook announced that WhatsApp was altering its personal privacy policy for the first time considering that the acquisition to permit Facebook to see the telephone number that an individual shares when they enroll in WhatsApp. Facebook can use this details to permit companies to speak to users directly via WhatsApp, as they can currently do through Messenger, and also will enable Facebook to reveal even more appropriate ads to logged-in customers. Nonetheless, WhatsApp stated it would not share these contact number directly with individuals.
WhatsApp passed more than than 1 billion month-to-month individuals in February and is one of the most preferred conversation application in over half of the world, according to recent statistics from SimilarWeb.
Facebook had no discuss the sales, as it does not comment on individuals' financial investment decisions.