GitHub Billionaires Will Own More Microsoft Stock Than Its CEO
Patience has paid off for the founders of GitHub after Microsoft agreed to pay $7.5 billion for the coding platform.
(Bloomberg) -- Patience has paid off for the founders of GitHub Inc. after Microsoft Corp. agreed to pay $7.5 billion for the coding platform.
The all-stock deal is equivalent to 73.8 million Microsoft shares, based on Monday’s closing price. About half of that should pass to GitHub’s three founders, according to an analysis by EquityZen, a marketplace for shares in pre-IPO technology companies.
The windfall will make billionaires of Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath and PJ Hyett, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and shake up the ownership ranks of the world’s largest software company. The transaction will turn them into some of Microsoft’s biggest individual shareholders.
Each of the three could receive about 12.3 million Microsoft shares, assuming they control equal stakes in GitHub. A 0.16 percent holding would give each of them about 10 times more shares than Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, and roughly 14 times more than President Brad Smith. Among insiders, only co-founder Bill Gates’s 1.34 percent holding would exceed theirs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The founders were able to fend off the advances of venture capitalists for many years while building their company,” said EquityZen co-founder Phil Haslett. “Their patience has paid off.”
Microsoft and GitHub representatives didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
--With assistance from Eric Newcomer and Dina Bass.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Metcalf in New York at tmetcalf7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum
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