Zoom Founder Gives $6 Billion Of His Shares, Here's Why
Zoom founder Eric Yuan gave $6 billion of his shares away last week. Although the recipient of the stock wasn't specified, Yuan's action follows other ultra-rich investors who have been selling stock lately.
Since the pandemic, the demand for Zoom has significantly risen, making the 51-year-old businessman one of the richest in the world. At the height of the pandemic, stock for Zoom skyrocketed to almost 400 percent; now in 2021, it has dipped to 7.8 percent, as reported by Yahoo! Finance via Bloomberg. The reason why the Zoom CEO is donating more than a third of his stake in the company comes down to his “typical estate planning practices", as stated by a Zoom spokesperson.
It has been reported that Yuan's pre-transfer net worth is a staggering $15.1 billion. Since last March, a cool $9.2 million floated into his bank account.
The appeal of selling stock has been high lately in the business world. CEO and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been donating shares of Amazon.com Inc. in support of a $10 billion pledge made last year to combat climate change, according to Yahoo! Finance. Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing gave some of his Zoom holdings to his businessman son. Recently, TheRichest reported that Warren Buffet and Ron Baron sold their shares in money-makers Tesla Motors and Apple.
Last week, Yuan gifted almost 18 million shares of Zoom. While the recipient of the stock wasn't mentioned, we do know that it is owned by a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust or GRAT. Yuan is a trustee of GRAT. On Friday, the shares were valued at an impressive $6 billion. Shares of Zoom fell 8% to $310.00 on Monday; they fell another 1.2% in after-hours trading. As reported by The Street, Zoom reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that were significantly ahead of analyst expectations, with adjusted earnings of $1.22 per share on revenue of $882.5 million, a 369% year-over-year increase.
Zoom was founded in 2011 by Yuan after spending years employed at WebEx Communications. The video-conferencing company was founded with a passion when the company he was working for didn't want to improve on their existing products The China-born native was passionate about living in America and didn't let his eight visa refusals stop him from eventually prevailing and moving to Silicon Valley.
Since its 2011 release, Zoom has become known as the world's best web-conferencing product. It took a mere four years for Zoom to begin as a small startup to an impressive network used by millions of people.
Sources: Yahoo! Finance via Bloomberg, The Street
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