Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion
Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $19 billion in deal shocker
Facebook Inc will buy fast-growing mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp
for $19 billion in cash and stock in a landmark deal that places the
world's largest social network closer to the heart of mobile
communications and may bring younger users into the fold.
The transaction involves $4
billion in cash, $12 billion in stock and $3 billion in restricted stock
that vests over several years. The WhatsApp deal is worth more than
Facebook raised in its own IPO and underscores the social network's
determination to win the market for messaging.
Founded
by a Ukrainian immigrant who dropped out of college, Jan Koum, and a
Stanford alumnus, Brian Acton, WhatsApp is a Silicon Valley startup
fairy tale, rocketing to 450 million users in five years and adding
another million daily.
"No one in
the history of the world has ever done something like this," Facebook
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call on Wednesday.
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