Facebook’s acquisition of popular messaging platform WhatsApp was well-publicised and created waves in the entire tech world. While the consideration of $19 billion for the deal was itself a talking point, a new report claims that the social media company led by Mark Zuckerberg acquired WhatsApp around the same time when Tencent was interested in presenting its offer for the acquisition. For those who are unaware, Tencent is the company behind WeChat messaging app, which is one of the most, if not the most, popular messaging platforms in China.
If you are wondering what prevented Tencent from presenting its offer to WhatsApp in 2014, the Bloomberg report claims the company’s co-founder ‘Pony’ Ma Huateng had to undergo a back surgery right around the time Tencent was about to make its offer.
While this acquisition would have turned Tencent into a global player, it is hard to say that the company would have been successful even if it had presented its offer to WhatsApp. This is because Facebook reportedly ended up paying more than twice the amount that Tencent was planning on offering to the company for the acquisition deal.
As the Bloomberg report has not mentioned whether Mark Zuckerberg was aware about Pony Ma’s surgery or Tencent’s intention to present an acquisition deal to WhatsApp, it would be unfair to suggest that Zuckerberg took advantage of the situation. However, this is not the first time that Facebook rushed a deal as it tried to negotiate the acquisition of Oculus over one weekend, points out CNBC.
