WhatsApp founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton received 116 million shares of Facebook stock currently worth nearly US$9 billion when they sold their unprofitable messaging service to the social networking leader earlier this month.
The breakdown of the big winners in Facebook Inc’s US$22 billion acquisition emerged on Wednesday in a regulatory filing.
Koum, a Ukraine immigrant who was once living on welfare, reaped the biggest jackpot, with 76.4 million Facebook shares now worth US$5.8 billion. That makes him Facebook’s fourth-largest stockholder, behind company chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and two mutual funds, Fidelity Management and Vanguard.
Acton, who worked with Koum when they were both Yahoo Inc engineers, owns 39.7 million Facebook shares worth US$3 billion.
More than 45 other WhatsApp current and former employees also received Facebook stock. Wednesday’s filing did not specify how many shares most of the other employees received.
Besides the Facebook stock, Koum and Acton were also paid a large chunk of the US$4.6 billion in cash that was included in the WhatsApp acquisition. The amount of cash that the WhatsApp founders received has not been disclosed.
Both Koum, 38, and Acton, 42, rank among the 200 richest people in the US, according to Forbes’ rankings.
Koum remains WhatsApp’s CEO and also sits on Facebook’s board of directors. He is being paid an annual salary of just US$1, but will receive an additional 24.9 million shares of Facebook stock that will vest during the next four years. That restricted stock is currently worth about US$1.9 billion.
Although WhatsApp ranks among the world’s most popular messaging apps, it has not turned a profit yet.
The service lost US$232.5 million on revenue of just US$15 million during the first six months of this year, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
WhatsApp’s revenue primarily comes from an annual subscription fee of US$0.99 that kicks in after one year of free service.
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