TikTok owner ByteDance’s valuation down 26 per cent to US$223.5 billion in stock buy-back from US employees, report says

ByteDance is looking to buy at least US$300 million worth of stock from current and former US employees at US$160 per share, according to The Information

While TikTok continues to face political scrutiny in the US, its owner saw first-quarter profit nearly double to US$6 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported

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Published: 12:19pm, 3 Oct 2023

ByteDance is buying back shares from US employees in a deal that values the TikTok parent company at US$223.5 billion, about 26 per cent lower than the valuation it hit in a similar transaction a year earlier, the Information reported on Monday.

The company is looking to buy at least US$300 million worth of stock from current and former US employees, the report said, citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside of normal business hours.

Several start-ups have had to take a cut to their valuations, as the pandemic-era exuberance of 2020 and 2021 in the private investment market due to accommodative monetary policy and easy capital that had led to unsustainable spikes waned.

The deal comes at a time when ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok has been facing growing calls for a nationwide ban from some US lawmakers over concerns about potential Chinese government influence over it. ByteDance has denied the allegations.