ByteDance has kicked off preparations for an initial public offering of some of its main businesses, including China's most popular video app Douyin, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Beijing-based startup is working with advisers on the offering and is choosing between Hong Kong and the United States as the listing venue, the people said. The company is considering including its flagship domestic assets such as Douyin, news aggregator Toutiao and video platform Xigua in the offering, they said. TikTok will likely be part of a separate listing that involves overseas assets, one of the people said.
ByteDance could raise at least several billion dollars from a listing of the Chinese assets, although the size could still change as deliberations are at an early stage.
State-owned media China Securities Journal reported yesterday that ByteDance has told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it has appointed securities underwriters for its public sale.
Trading of ByteDance shares in private markets valued the company at more than US$250 billion (HK$1.95 trillion), Bloomberg reported.
In other news, Shenzhen-listed developer Yango Group said it will spin off its property management business to list in Hong Kong.
The global IPO markets saw a best-performing first quarter by deal numbers and proceeds in the last 20 years. The total fundraising surged 271 percent to US$105.6 billion.
A total of 430 deals were completed, rising 85 percent from a year ago, according to EY.
Terence Ho, EY Greater China IPO Leader, expects Hong Kong IPO will maintain a positive momentum thanks to secondary listing by US-listed Chinese firms.
