The industrial giant ByteDance is on the verge of entering the stock market. Chinese media report that TikTok owners are actively preparing for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It is assumed that the capitalization of the company after him will reach an astronomical $ 400 billion.
Source: ByteDance
The gaming business publication GameLook told about the ongoing negotiations on the listing with reference to its own sources.
ByteDance itself has not yet commented on the portal’s information.
Rumors that ByteDance may become a public company have been circulating for the past three years. This was last reported less than a month ago after Chew Shou Zi, a former Xiaomi executive, became the new CFO of ByteDance. The fact is that in 2018, Shou Tzu oversaw the initial public offering of shares from Xiaomi. Presumably, he can do the same for ByteDance.
Also, rumors about an IPO are fueled by the fact that recently ByteDance has begun to pay more attention to M&A transactions. For example, in March she bought Moonton mobile studio, developers of MOBA Mobile Legends.
In addition, at the end of 2020, the media wrote that ByteDance was considering listing at least for part of its business. Among the main candidates for the IPO were Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and Toutiao (a news aggregator). But the company subsequently denied rumors about their withdrawal to the stock exchange.
To date, ByteDance has conducted at least nine rounds of financing. During the last fundraiser, the company was valued at $140 billion. However, according to Bloomberg, the company’s capitalization in the secondary market by the end of March 2021 had already reached $ 250 billion. As the Chinese portal South China Morning Post added, thanks to the IPO, ByteDance’s valuation may exceed $ 400 billion.
Note that at the time of writing the news, due to rumors about the upcoming entry into the stock exchange, the existing non-tradable shares of ByteDance for the company’s employees have more than doubled in price. Now one such share costs $126, despite the fact that a year ago its price was below $ 50.