Negotiations are being held by investors of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance to use their stakes in the company for aiding in funding of their bid for acquisition of the United State operations of ByteDance owned popular short-video app TikTok, claimed reports quoting sources with knowledge of the matter.
Talks between potential acquirers of TikTok, including Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp, and ByteDance is are being held for sale of TikTok’s North America, Australia and New Zealand operations.
US President Donald Trump had issued an executive order on August 14 that essentially asks the Chinese company to sell of TikTok’s US operation within a period of 90 days from the order because of concerns of the ,manner in which the company handles the safety of the personal data of its millions of users.
Reports said that attempts to own large stakes in the TikTok assets for sale are being made by some ByteDance investors including investment firm General Atlantic. Reports also stated that Microsoft or Oracle could receive a minority stake in the assets of TikTok according to the plans of the investors about restructuring the company.
Reports have also stated that the value of the assets of TikTok that would be up for sale could be between $25 billion and $30 billion. Plans of exchanging some or all of their stakes in the Chinese company for equity in the TikTok assets are being made by ByteDance investors in order to help fund their bid.
Reports however said that the plans of ByteDance investors’ could get stalled because of long odds and significant hurdles as some of the officials in the Trump administration have said that the government expects a major American company to lead the TikTok deal and be able to completely separate the app technologically from ByteDance. Any deal to sell off TikTok has to be approved by a US government panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Analysts say that the current efforts by the US investors of ByteDance to gain a larger role in the TikTok deal could give the Chinese tech company more options to prevent a fire sale of TikTok even if they are unable to completely purchase the short video sharing app. Reports quoting sources also said that some of the American investors of ByteDance had to convince the founder of the company and CEO, Yiming Zhang, to sell of TikTok.
Reports also suggested the lead bidder for TikTok is still Microsoft because of the financial capability of the tech giant as well as technical capacity that it has to design new algorithms for TikTok which are expected to be different from ByteDance and its Chinese short video app Douyin.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been pushing its efforts to take out those Chinese apps that it deems to be “untrusted”, from the digital networks in the country. In addition to the action against TikTok and ByteDance, the Trump administration has also banned transactions of American companies or entities with Chinese chat app WeChat owned by China’s Tencent Holding Ltd.
(Source:www.financialexpress.com)
Talks between potential acquirers of TikTok, including Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp, and ByteDance is are being held for sale of TikTok’s North America, Australia and New Zealand operations.
US President Donald Trump had issued an executive order on August 14 that essentially asks the Chinese company to sell of TikTok’s US operation within a period of 90 days from the order because of concerns of the ,manner in which the company handles the safety of the personal data of its millions of users.
Reports said that attempts to own large stakes in the TikTok assets for sale are being made by some ByteDance investors including investment firm General Atlantic. Reports also stated that Microsoft or Oracle could receive a minority stake in the assets of TikTok according to the plans of the investors about restructuring the company.
Reports have also stated that the value of the assets of TikTok that would be up for sale could be between $25 billion and $30 billion. Plans of exchanging some or all of their stakes in the Chinese company for equity in the TikTok assets are being made by ByteDance investors in order to help fund their bid.
Reports however said that the plans of ByteDance investors’ could get stalled because of long odds and significant hurdles as some of the officials in the Trump administration have said that the government expects a major American company to lead the TikTok deal and be able to completely separate the app technologically from ByteDance. Any deal to sell off TikTok has to be approved by a US government panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Analysts say that the current efforts by the US investors of ByteDance to gain a larger role in the TikTok deal could give the Chinese tech company more options to prevent a fire sale of TikTok even if they are unable to completely purchase the short video sharing app. Reports quoting sources also said that some of the American investors of ByteDance had to convince the founder of the company and CEO, Yiming Zhang, to sell of TikTok.
Reports also suggested the lead bidder for TikTok is still Microsoft because of the financial capability of the tech giant as well as technical capacity that it has to design new algorithms for TikTok which are expected to be different from ByteDance and its Chinese short video app Douyin.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been pushing its efforts to take out those Chinese apps that it deems to be “untrusted”, from the digital networks in the country. In addition to the action against TikTok and ByteDance, the Trump administration has also banned transactions of American companies or entities with Chinese chat app WeChat owned by China’s Tencent Holding Ltd.
(Source:www.financialexpress.com)
