ByteDance Investors Sequoia, General Atlantic Lend Support To Oracle TikTok Bid: WSJ

Two major investors in TikTok parent company ByteDance are lending support to Oracle Corp’s ORCL purchase of the short-form video app, with the intent of being a part of a deal, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

What Happened: General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, which both sit on the board of ByteDance, are making efforts to support Oracle’s bid to buy the Chinese app, even as Microsoft Corporation MSFT makes its moves, according to the Journal.

Microsoft has said it might be amenable to letting some U.S. investors participate in its bid, but the two investors expressed concerns that they would not be able to take part in the latter’s acquisition, the Journal noted.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is a supporter of President Donald Trump, which is a big advantage against rival bidders, according to the Financial Times.

Why It Matters: ByteDance placed TikTok’s U.S. operations value at more than $50 billion, according to an unnamed source of the Journal.

The Chinese company’s investors in the U.S. are looking to own large stakes in TikTok’s assets for sale which could be worth $25 billion and $30 billion, Reuters reported.

ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming has amicable relations with his Microsoft counterpart Satya Nadella, having worked at Microsoft in the past, according to the Journal. He is said to favor the technology veteran company’s bid.

Trump signed an executive order last month to ban all U.S. entities from making financial transactions with ByteDance 45 days after it was signed. If a deal is not concluded by that period, the app faces a ban in the U.S.

Oracle, Microsoft, and Twitter Inc TWTR are all reported to be in discussions to acquire TikTok’s domestic and international operations.

Price Action: Oracle shares closed nearly 1.5% higher at $56.01 on Monday and gained another 0.45% in the after-hours session.