Remember when news came out that Facebook was paying $1 billion for Instagram. Well, the deal might not be worth quite that much, as the number is looking more like $715 million.
The company filed a 10-Q quarterly report with the SEC this week, which has a section explaining how it accounted for the transaction, which included a total purchase price of $521 million worth of about 12 million vested shares of our Class B common stock and $300 million in cash. Based on the time the shares were issued, it comes to about $715 million.
Here are the relevant excerpts from the document:
In August 2012, we completed our acquisition of Instagram, Inc. (Instagram), a privately-held company which has built a mobile phone-based photo-sharing service that is expected to enhance our photos product offerings and to enable users to increase their levels of mobile engagement and photo sharing. We have accounted for this transaction as a business acquisition for a total purchase price of $521 million , consisting of the issuance of approximately 12 million vested shares of our Class B common stock to non-employee stockholders of Instagram and $300 million in cash. The value of the equity component of the purchase price was determined for accounting purposes based on the fair value of our common stock on the closing date. We also issued approximately 11 million unvested shares of our Class B common stock to employee stockholders of Instagram on the closing date, with an aggregate fair value of $ 194 million , which will be recognized as they vest over a three -year service period as share-based compensation expense.
There’s been a running meme in the tech/business world that a billion dollars equals one Instagram. For example, if you sold a company for $500 million, it was worth half an Instagram. If you sold for $2 billion, it would be worth two Instagrams.
I guess that has to end now.