Facebook Acquires WhatsApp For A Lot More Money Than You Think — Here Are The Details!
It’s official! WhatsApp, the popular messaging service, is now owned by Facebook.
Reports confirm that the filing to complete this lengthy acquisition process was made with the SEC on Monday.
Keep in mind that the initial announcement of Facebook’s intent to acquire WhatsApp was made back in February. Since then, the social media powerhouse has had quite a few obstacles to overcome in the form of regulatory hurdles. However, according to TechCrunch, Facebook received EU approval to close the deal and proceed with the completion of the WhatsApp acquisition late last week.
One of the biggest changes that occurred during the eight-month waiting period since that first announcement was the price tag that Mark Zuckerberg and his team needed to pay to close the WhatsApp deal.
As if $19 billion was not such an impressive figure to start, the final sales price actually increased to nearly $22 billion ($21.8 billion, to be exact).
Why in the world did the sales price jump nearly $3 billion in less than a year? According to a report confirmed by Recode, the price increase was solely because of Facebook’s stock price increasing since that first announcement was made.
Along with the fact that he was able to sell his passion project to the most popular social media platform in the world, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum officially joins the board committee of Facebook with this acquisition deal as well. While Koum will only receive a $1 salary (like Zuckerberg), the WhatsApp acquisition deal allows him to walk away from the table with a substantial amount of Facebook shares to keep him company. As a matter of fact, one report shows that Koum received a signing bonus of over 24.8 million restricted stock units.
According to the released details of the filing, Jan Koum is definitely not the only person who will be celebrating the WhatsApp acquisition. Over 177.7 million shares of Facebook’s Class A common stock, in addition to more than $4.5 billion, is heading to WhatsApp stakeholders. Even WhatsApp employees are getting a piece of the pie by receiving more than 45.9 million restricted stock units, according to The Verge.
WhatsApp users should not be alarmed or worried about how drastically their favored messaging service will change now that it is owned by Facebook. Based on a statement made by Jan Koum when the initial announcement of an acquisition was made, the primary foundation and “core” of WhatsApp will always remain the same.
“There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.”
What do you think about Facebook acquiring WhatsApp? Do you think that WhatsApp was worth nearly $22 billion?
