Most headlines surrounding Facebook's (META 2.20%) announcement to purchase WhatsApp focus on just how big the purchase was. Nineteen billion is no joke -- especially for a 55-employee company. But what else is interesting about Facebook's arrangement to purchase WhatsApp is the way the deal was structured.
With approximately $15 billion of this $19 billion deal in the form of common shares and restricted stock units, Facebook is essentially sharing a large portion of the risk in this very speculative deal with WhatsApp. This is excellent news for Facebook investors because even though WhatsApp is clearly on its way to 1 billion users in the near future, the app only had an estimated $20 million in revenue in 2013. If Facebook were to pay $19 billion in cash in a deal like this, there would be far more risk for Facebook investors. Of course, the fact that Facebook shares have soared about 150% in the last 12 months is a nice bonus too.
In the following video, Fool contributor Daniel Sparks takes a closer look at how Facebook shared risk with WhatsApp in this massive deal.
