The Chinese company ByteDance, which owns the short video service TikTok, is in the process of obtaining a loan in the amount of $9.5 billion for a period of three years. If successfully negotiated, this will be the largest corporate dollar loan for Asian countries (excluding Japan). Bloomberg writes about this, citing its own informed sources.
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The report said that Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan act as coordinators of the fundraising process. It is also known that the loan period, if necessary, can be extended to five years. The terms of the loan provide for an additional placement option, which will expand the amount of borrowing above $9.5 billion. According to Bloomberg, part of the funds will be used to refinance a $5 billion loan taken out in 2021. In addition, the raised funds are planned to be used as working capital.
ByteDance appears set to take advantage of the Asian credit market, which is experiencing liquidity shortages amid low deal flows. The volume of dollar loans, excluding bilateral agreements, in the Asian region excluding Japan fell by 44% in the first half of the year to about $45.5 billion, the lowest level since 2010. Official representatives of ByteDance have so far refrained from commenting on this issue.
Founded in 2012, ByteDance has quickly become one of the leading social media companies thanks to the popularity of TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin. Despite this success, the company is looking to expand beyond its core business, where online advertising generates the lion’s share of its revenue. In the home market, ByteDance is among the largest IT companies that have invested billions of dollars in developments in the field of artificial intelligence and the creation of generative neural networks. In the global market, the company plans to roll out an online shopping platform that will be available in the US and Europe, where the TikTok video service is most popular.