Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported (4/25) that ByteDance has decided to delay TikTok IPO. This is due to continuous tensions between the U.S. and China.
“We had a hard time finding a business structure that could satisfy both China and the U.S.. Including the separation of TikTok and TikTok’s mainland service Dou Yin,” SCMP quoted a Byte Dance official.
Another source said that the company has decided to postpone its listing plan due to geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China.
Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that Byte Dance would be listed on either the U.S. or Hong Kong stock markets. Chinese media Tsai Xin reported that it is to be on the Hong Kong stock market in the second quarter of this year. As the U.S. tightened restrictions on Chinese companies.
“When listed, Byte Dance’s market capitalization will reach $400 billion”. It is the third largest IPO ever after Tencent and Alibaba.
ByteDance: No imminent IPO plans for TikTok
“At this point, we are not ready to proceed with the IPO”. ByteDance said in a statement in a flurry of IPO speculation reports. “We have no imminent IPO plans”.
Experts said that although Byte Dance is basically a Chinese company, it is not easy to see both the U.S. and Chinese authorities’ “consciousness” as U.S. investors have more than 40 percent stake.
“Byte dance is becoming increasingly complex and dangerous to meet the regulatory requirements of the United States and China,” said Alex Capri, a senior researcher at the National University of Singapore. “Byte dance has decided to keep a low profile after seeing what happened to Ant Group and Alibaba.”
Ant Group prepared an IPO in November last year. But they abruptly canceled the IPO plan after Alibaba founder Ma Yun publicly criticized regulators.
However, the IPO of ByteDance will continue at this point, experts expected.
