Facebook completes purchase of Whatsapp
Whatsapp is now officially part of Facebook. The world's largest online network announced the completion of the acquisition on Monday. Facebook paid around $21.8 billion for the company at the current share price.
When the acquisition was announced in February, there was still talk of up to $19 billion. But since then, the Facebook share price has risen. Therefore, the 223.7 million Facebook shares going to owners and employees of the short message service Whatsapp are worth more. In cash flow to the former Whatsapp owners 4.59 billion dollars. Facebook had repeatedly assured Whatsapp would continue to operate independently. The data of the two services should not be mixed. Whatsapp emphasizes collecting as little data as possible about its users, while Facebook thrives on giving advertising partners targeted access to desired user groups. More than 600 million people use Whatsapp. The co-founder and head of Whatsapp, Jan Koum, is to receive only one dollar as annual salary in the future - but at the same time gets Facebook shares with a current value of almost two billion dollars. (SDA)
