Steve Mnuchin, the former US Treasury secretary, is putting together a group of investors to buy TikTok from its parent company ByteDance.
“It’s a great business,” Mr Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC. “It should be owned by a US business. There’s no way the Chinese would ever let a US company run something like this in China.”
He added that the social media app would be remade in the US with home-grown technology.
Mr Mnuchin said he had spoken to a number of potential investors but declined to give specifics.
No investor would own more than 10 per cent of TikTok should a sale of the social media company go through, he added.
In any deal, existing investors would have the option to roll over under the new ownership.
Mr Mnuchin leads Liberty Strategic Capital, a private equity firm focused on investing in global technology companies. He established the business after stepping down as US Treasury Secretary.
In 2021, Japan's SoftBank Group said it would invest in the Mr Mnuchin's $2.5 billion fund through the $40 billion second Vision Fund, Reuters reported at the time.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is also among the backers of the fund, according to a Financial Times report at the time.
Meanwhile, SoftBank also invested in ByteDance in 2018.
It is not clear if Liberty will be involved in the bid for the TikTok business.
Mr Mnuchin believes the Chinese government would back a sale of TikTok as long as there is no technology transfer.
TikTok intends to exhaust all legal challenges before it considers any kind of divestiture from Chinese parent company ByteDance if the latest US legislation against the app becomes law, sources told Bloomberg.
Representatives for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US House passed a measure on Wednesday to ban TikTok unless its Chinese owner divests it.
The short-video app used by 170 million Americans has turned its lobbying efforts to the Senate, where passage is less certain.
Bobby Kotick, the former chief executive of Activision Blizzard, has expressed interest in buying TikTok to ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Mr Kotick is looking for partners and at a dinner this month, he floated the idea to several people, including OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
Institutional investors including Carlyle, General Atlantic and Susquehanna own 60 per cent of ByteDance while 20 per cent is owned by the company’s global workforce and an additional 20 per cent is owned by the company’s Chinese co-founder Mr Zhang.
TikTok’s US business may be valued at $40 billion to $50 billion, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated last year, a number that could be even higher with its fledgling e-commerce business.
The list of cash or equity buyers is short. Meta Platforms and Alphabet would be hard-pressed to clear an antitrust review.
It is likely that Amazon would, too, since it is a competitor to TikTok Shop. Oracle, TikTok’s current data protection partner and former suitor, is saddled with debt from a past deal.
A stand-alone, private TikTok could also potentially work, purchased with a mixture of cash and debt.
Twitter’s takeover, which included about a third of debt in Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase, is a recent similar example.
Bloomberg contributed to this report
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10 tips for entry-level job seekers
- Have an up-to-date, professional LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, set one up today. Avoid poor-quality profile pictures with distracting backgrounds. Include a professional summary and begin to grow your network.
- Keep track of the job trends in your sector through the news. Apply for job alerts at your dream organisations and the types of jobs you want – LinkedIn uses AI to share similar relevant jobs based on your selections.
- Double check that you’ve highlighted relevant skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
- For most entry-level jobs, your resume will first be filtered by an applicant tracking system for keywords. Look closely at the description of the job you are applying for and mirror the language as much as possible (while being honest and accurate about your skills and experience).
- Keep your CV professional and in a simple format – make sure you tailor your cover letter and application to the company and role.
- Go online and look for details on job specifications for your target position. Make a list of skills required and set yourself some learning goals to tick off all the necessary skills one by one.
- Don’t be afraid to reach outside your immediate friends and family to other acquaintances and let them know you are looking for new opportunities.
- Make sure you’ve set your LinkedIn profile to signal that you are “open to opportunities”. Also be sure to use LinkedIn to search for people who are still actively hiring by searching for those that have the headline “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring” in their profile.
- Prepare for online interviews using mock interview tools. Even before landing interviews, it can be useful to start practising.
- Be professional and patient. Always be professional with whoever you are interacting with throughout your search process, this will be remembered. You need to be patient, dedicated and not give up on your search. Candidates need to make sure they are following up appropriately for roles they have applied.
Arda Atalay, head of Mena private sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Rudy Bier, managing partner of Kinetic Business Solutions and Ben Kinerman Daltrey, co-founder of KinFitz
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
