ITVoice News: Facebook just announced, in an SEC filing, about the completion of its acquisition of mobile messaging app Whatsapp for almost $22 billion. The process was initiated in February this year at the original deal of $19 billion.
The cash-and-stock deal was struck earlier this year, but thanks to the rising price of Facebook shares, the deal was completed after Facebook awarded its 177,760,669 shares of its Class A common stock and $4.59 billion in cash to WhatsApp stakeholders along with 45,941,775 units of restricted stock to WhatsApp employees, as per the SEC filing.
The messaging app has been rapidly growing in developing countries like Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia and holds over 500 million users. WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum has now joined the Facebook board, and will continue working on the messaging app, since the company has decided to treat it as independently and autonomous identity. The users will not observe any changes in the current working of the application.
