TikTok’s Chinese language Proprietor Put IPO on Maintain After Warning

However the firm’s founder, Zhang Yiming, determined it will be wiser to place the plans on ice in late March, after conferences with our on-line world and securities regulators during which they requested the corporate to give attention to addressing data-security dangers and different points, the individuals acquainted with the matter mentioned.

The corporate had different causes for delaying the itemizing. It didn’t have a chief monetary officer on the time, an individual near the corporate mentioned.

ByteDance’s cautious method contrasts with that of Chinese language ride-hailing large Didi International Inc., which runs the nation’s ubiquitous car-hailing app. Didi pressed forward with itemizing plans within the U.S. regardless of recommendations from the our on-line world administration to not amid considerations that a few of its knowledge may fall into international fingers, The Wall Road Journal reported.

Didi raised $4.Four billion in late June however is now the topic of a cybersecurity investigation and has since had its most important app and 25 others it operates ordered eliminated from Chinese language app shops.

The Our on-line world Administration of China, the nation’s web regulator, and the China Securities Regulatory Fee didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Chinese language authorities have been stiffening enforcement over the nation’s expertise corporations since November, with a sweeping antimonopoly crackdown, and new guidelines to manipulate knowledge assortment and cybersecurity practices. A number of different corporations, together with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and on-line supply firm Meituan, have been caught up within the dragnet.

One concern in Beijing has been that knowledge collected by China’s tech corporations could possibly be compromised on account of larger disclosure related to a U.S. itemizing. The authorities have additionally been cracking down on improper assortment and use of knowledge to guard shoppers’ pursuits.

On Tuesday, China mentioned it will tighten oversight of offshore listings. The securities regulator is drafting guidelines that would require offshore registered corporations to hunt regulatory approval earlier than promoting shares in international markets, with the our on-line world administration main interagency scrutiny into IPO candidates to ensure their plans don’t threat nationwide safety.

On Saturday, the company proposed amending its personal draft cybersecurity-review guidelines to incorporate a requirement that web corporations with a couple of million customers bear a cybersecurity assessment in the event that they want to checklist overseas.

Beforehand, Chinese language corporations didn’t usually want the our on-line world administration’s permission to checklist abroad. However towards the top of 2020, as U.S.-China tensions deepened, the administration started requiring some expertise corporations to tell it about attainable abroad listings and search casual approval, individuals acquainted with the company mentioned.

In ByteDance’s case, Chinese language regulators by no means referred to as outright for a delay in attainable share choices, individuals acquainted with the matter mentioned.

However regulators have been involved concerning the data-security compliance of ByteDance’s apps in China, the individual near the corporate mentioned. In the course of the conferences, the regulators have been keen to grasp how ByteDance collected, saved and managed knowledge, based on individuals acquainted with communication between the 2 events.

ByteDance runs apps utilized by lots of of tens of millions of individuals in China, together with short-video app Douyin and Jinri Toutiao, or At this time’s Headlines. Private data collected by Douyin can embody mobile-phone numbers, birthdays, actual names and ID numbers.

Given Beijing’s considerations, ByteDance’s Mr. Zhang assessed that the time wasn’t proper for an IPO due to the political and regulatory atmosphere, the individuals acquainted with the matter mentioned.

On April 23, Bytedance mentioned in an announcement on its social media account, “After severe analysis, we predict the corporate doesn’t fulfill the required necessities to go public, and at the moment don’t have any such plan.” The corporate didn’t present additional rationalization for its choice on the time.

Bytedance, whose shareholders embody Sequoia Capital and KKR & Co., is among the world’s most beneficial startups. In contrast to Didi, which had chalked up losses for years, Bytedance’s financials meant it didn’t must hurry to checklist, mentioned individuals acquainted with the corporate.

The corporate instructed workers in June that its income final yr greater than doubled to $34.three billion as promoting on its platforms grew, whereas gross revenue rose to $19 billion.

ByteDance has had earlier run-ins with regulators. In early 2018, Beijing shut down a joke app, Neihan Duanzi, run by the corporate on the grounds that it contained vulgar content material. Mr. Zhang responded with a prolonged social-media put up apologizing and promising so as to add extra censors.

This yr, ByteDance was publicly referred to as out by authorities for a wide range of infractions together with extreme assortment of customers’ private data and unsuitable content material.

Bytedance was amongst 13 web corporations summoned by monetary regulators and instructed to stick to a lot tighter regulation of their knowledge and lending practices in April. It was additionally amongst almost three dozen Chinese language tech corporations that made public pledges to adjust to antimonopoly legal guidelines that month.

In Could, the corporate’s 38-year-old founder, Mr. Zhang, resigned as chief govt, becoming a member of a gaggle of tech leaders who’ve stepped down as the federal government will increase stress on the sector.

ByteDance has additionally confronted stress from U.S. regulators. Final yr, the Trump administration raised considerations that knowledge its TikTok app collects from customers could possibly be shared with the Chinese language authorities. TikTok denied that would occur.

The Biden administration revoked in June a Trump-era try to ban TikTok within the U.S. However TikTok nonetheless faces a broad assessment of apps managed by international adversaries to find out whether or not they pose a safety risk to the U.S.

—Raffaele Huang, Keith Zhai, Yang Jie and Jing Yang contributed to this text.

Write to Xie Yu at Yu.Xie@wsj.com and Liza Lin at Liza.Lin@wsj.com