Anyone looking to buy half a billion dollars’ worth of ByteDance? High-speed quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group is in need of a buyer for a $500m portion of its shares in the TikTok parent company.
Susquehanna first made a bet on ByteDance back in 2012 before the company’s first big hit Toutiao. Toutiao then went on to become a wildly popular news aggregator app. Susquehanna continued to believe in ByteDance’s potential and helped fund the company’s creation of TikTok. As of October of last year, Susquehanna was ByteDance’s largest backer with a 15% stake.
Its stake in ByteDance ended up giving Susquehanna one of the highest returns in the history of venture capital, but with increasing pressure against Chinese tech companies from the government, Susquehanna believes now is a good time to take some profits and diversify its balance sheet.
Why it matters
The big question on everyone's mind is when ByteDance will IPO. It seems the offering is being held up for the same reasons Susquehanna wants to sell and is pending more clarity on what actions, if any, the Chinese government plans to take with big tech.
