TikTok owner ByteDance says it has no immediate plans to go public

Beijing-based ByteDance, owner of the globally-successful TikTok app and its Chinese version Douyin, said in a statement on Friday that it is not ready to file for an initial public offering, at least for the time being.

“There has been recent media speculation about our IPO plans. We would like to clarify that we are not ready at this stage and do not have IPO plans yet,” the Beijing-based company said in brief statement late on Friday, without elaborating.

A person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified as the information is not public, told the Post that ByteDance – whose valuation has approached US$400 billion in the private market – has shelved its IPO plan partly because it is proving difficult to restructure its business to meet regulatory requirements in both China and the US.

The status of TikTok in the US remains uncertain after ByteDance shelved a deal to sell the video-sharing app’s US operations to a group led by Oracle following earlier pressure from former US President Donald Trump to find a buyer, as reported by the Post in February.

Although not banned in the US – as Trump had threatened – the app’s future there is still clouded by regulatory uncertainty as the new Biden administration takes another look at potential security concerns raised by Chinese apps operating on US soil.

ByteDance and TikTok did not immediately reply to requests for further comment on IPO plans on Friday.

The statement came amid rampant market speculation that the company, created by 38-year-old Zhang Yiming nine years ago, was considering a listing.

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The Post reported in February that ByteDance was in preliminary discussions to raise capital in the US by listing the shares of its China-only short video sharing application Douyin in New York, citing a source familiar with the plan.

Bloomberg reported last week that the nine-year-old company had kicked off preparations for an IPO of some of its main businesses, including Douyin, and was in the process of choosing between Hong Kong and US as the listing venue, citing people familiar with the matter.

The China Securities Journal, an official newspaper affiliated with the Xinhua news agency, reported last week that ByteDance had kick-started a process to go public in Hong Kong, citing unidentified sources, only to pull the story from its website a few hours later.

Chinese magazine Caixin also reported last week that ByteDance would file for an IPO in Hong Kong in the second quarter, floating all its assets. But the report was also later pulled, without explanation.

Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister product and the hottest short video app in China, reported 600 million daily active users as of August last year.

TikTok, with 689 million worldwide daily users, contributed US$1 billion in revenue to ByteDance’s 2020 revenue of US$37 billion, according to data from Reuters and The Information.

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ByteDance’s valuation has approached US$400 billion for new external investors, the Post reported earlier this month – almost tripling its US$140 billion valuation after its series C fundraising in March 2020, according to data from analytics firm CB Insights.

Kuaishou, the second-largest short video app in China with about 300 million daily active users, had a successful IPO in Hong Kong in February.

The share price of the company nearly tripled on its first trading day and the company’s market cap was close to 1 trillion yuan (US$154 billion) as of Friday.