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TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

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21–30 of 723 posts

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#21
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what a lot companies who do business in China have to go through. For example, Activision-Blizzard are pretty much fully separated from The9, which is the only authorized distributor for World of Warcraft in China. Edit: Apologies, the source I was looking at was outdated and NetEase is the current distributor for WoW in China.

But unlike China, America fashions itself as a bastion of capitalism. Borrowing Chinese practices seems a little antithetical to everything I see America as

America has been acting neutral for last decades, especially last 15 years where China has asymmetrically taken advantage of American companies. China is getting a taste of their own medicine and I am fine with that.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#22
post #10

Trump's grudge on Tiktok users apart, could this be a plot of hostile take over? With all the public threats ByteDance is receiving from president of USA, Msft or any other company which acquires, gets one of the biggest social networking site of the decade at give away price.

I don’t think it’s at a discount at all. They’re effectively selling it at the height of the market. Even if they cut valuation in half, it’d still be at a significant premium.

Disagree. I think it is a discount. From my understanding the business was not for sale until this executive order.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#23
post #10

Trump's grudge on Tiktok users apart, could this be a plot of hostile take over? With all the public threats ByteDance is receiving from president of USA, Msft or any other company which acquires, gets one of the biggest social networking site of the decade at give away price.

I don’t think it’s at a discount at all. They’re effectively selling it at the height of the market. Even if they cut valuation in half, it’d still be at a significant premium.

It’d be the height of the market if they weren’t forced to sell too, they’d just also be in a much stronger bargaining position.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#24
post #10

Trump's grudge on Tiktok users apart, could this be a plot of hostile take over? With all the public threats ByteDance is receiving from president of USA, Msft or any other company which acquires, gets one of the biggest social networking site of the decade at give away price.

I don’t think it’s at a discount at all. They’re effectively selling it at the height of the market. Even if they cut valuation in half, it’d still be at a significant premium.

I feel like sentiment was similar for when FB bought IG for $1B. Today, we would all agree that was vastly under priced.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#26

At what point do the big tech companies see the real threat of Trump and begin actively campaigning against him? Feels like they have immense power if they decided to act politically.

I don't know why this is getting downvoted; companies in other sectors (e.g. oil) get involved in US politics regularly. But there's little precedent for media companies to take action in US politics overtly. (IANAL, but I suspect there are legal impediments as well). Taking a political stand, or providing support for one side, might force big tech companies to resolve the ambiguity as to whether they're media compan…

There is extreme precedent, media companies have been political for their entire history. They're pretty tame today for what it's worth, William Randolph Hearst started a war to sell newspapers.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#27
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what a lot companies who do business in China have to go through. For example, Activision-Blizzard are pretty much fully separated from The9, which is the only authorized distributor for World of Warcraft in China. Edit: Apologies, the source I was looking at was outdated and NetEase is the current distributor for WoW in China.

But unlike China, America fashions itself as a bastion of capitalism. Borrowing Chinese practices seems a little antithetical to everything I see America as

Capitalism is the reason the US outsourced its manufacturing to China to begin with - borrowing Chinese labor practices and corruption to do an end run around its own ideals for the sake of maximizing profits.

I mean, America is the country that fought the Nazis then hired them to build their space program just so they could plant their flag on the Moon and claim it before the Soviets. Hell, American companies were doing business with the Nazis while at war with the Nazis.

No nation puts it principles ahead of its interests.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#28

That's one way to avoid a US ban.

Even if they were honest and absolutely no data ever went back to China after this (not likely), that’s still billions flowing right back to a Chinese company straight out of America if they’re purchased. If Trump is sincere about his America first claims, he’d have a good reason to ban it and make the product worthless regardless.

Re: TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

#30
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s at a discount at all. They’re effectively selling it at the height of the market. Even if they cut valuation in half, it’d still be at a significant premium.

I feel like sentiment was similar for when FB bought IG for $1B. Today, we would all agree that was vastly under priced.

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