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Facebook to Buy WhatsApp for 16 Billion

posted by Dopefish on Thursday February 20 2014, @05:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-will-this-darn-bubble-pop-already? dept.

lubricus writes "Facebook announced plans to acquire WhatsApp for four billion cash, plus 12 billion in Facebook shares.

Additionally, WhatsApp employees and founders will receive three billion in restricted stock which will vest in four years. Facebook also agreed to a one billion dollar break up fee.

WhatsApp says they have message volume which approaches the global SMS volume, and hope to have one billion users. Even at those figures, Facebook is paying $16 per user.

I'm guessing WhatsApp will send Snapchat developers a cake."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Non Sequor on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:18AM

    by Non Sequor (1005) on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:18AM (#3347)

    I've heard it suggested by some kind of pundit that Microsoft should have done this sort of thing (i.e. buy up all of the startups) in order to stay relevant. It seems stupid to me because at valuations like this it's more like buying high priced lottery tickets, unless you're hubristic enough to believe that any business would benefit from your managerial insight.