ByteDance Revives IPO Plan, Eyes Hong Kong Listing, Financial Times Says

(Note: Updates earlier post with ByteDance comment that FT article is “inaccurate”)

ByteDance, which operates short-form video apps TikTok and Douyin,  plans to go public in Hong Kong by early next year “despite a widening regulatory assault targeting Chinese technology companies,” the Financial Times reported today.

The Beijing-headquartered company “is planning to list in either the fourth quarter of this year or early 2022,” the FT said, citing three people with knowledge of the company’s plans.

“After postponing its overseas listing this year, ByteDance has spent the past few months addressing Chinese regulators’ data security concerns, one of the people said, including providing more detail to authorities on how it stores and manages consumer information,” the FT said.  

ByteDance declined to comment, the newspaper said. However, in response to the FT report, ByteDance this evening called the article “inaccurate,” without elaboration.

ByteDance, whose investors include Sequoia-backed funds, was valued at $180 billion in a fundraising round in late 2020; chairman Zhang Yiming has an estimated fortune worth $35.8 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List today.

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