Facebook announced Wednesday that it acquired the instant messaging service WhatsApp for a whopping $16 billion.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the social networking giant revealed in detail that it agreed to buy WhatsApp for $4 billion in cash and 183,865,778 shares of Facebook common stock that is worth $65.2650 per share. Furthermore, Facebook pledged to award WhatsApp employees 45,966,444 restricted stock units -- increasing the whole acquisition amount to $19 billion.
The acquisition amount is 19 times bigger that the amount Facebook doled out for the photo-sharing app Instagram, which just amounted to $1 billion, San Jose Mercury News reported.
In a press release, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable."
WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, said in a news release, "WhatsApp's extremely high user engagement and rapid growth are driven by the simple, powerful and instantaneous messaging capabilities we provide. We're excited and honored to partner with Mark and Facebook as we continue to bring our product to more people around the world."
Zuckerberg also expressed excitement, saying, "I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected."
After the acquisition, WhatsApp will remain headquartered in its Mountain View office. Koum, who join Facebook's board of directors, assured WhatsApp users that its services will not change.
"WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you're using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product," Koum stated in his blog post.
