China’s ByteDance to ink $10.8B loan after seeing oversubscription – report

TikTok owner ByteDance (BDNCE) is set to ink a $10.8B loan, in what would be the largest-ever corporate facility in Asia, sans-Japan, in dollar terms, Bloomberg News reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

About 20 lenders — consisting of foreign and Chinese banks, including some branches — will provide the financing. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan were the coordinators of the funding, which is for three years and can be extended to maturity of up to five years, the report added.

The funds will be partly used to refinance an existing $5B dual-tranche facility the company had raised in 2021, according to the report.

The loan is oversubscribed and has grown from the preliminary target of $9.5B.

The financing comes at a time when ByteDance is in a legal battle with the U.S. government to either sell TikTok operations in the U.S. or face a ban. Meanwhile, at home, the company has seen a price war with players such as Baidu (BIDU), Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) (OTCPK:TCTZF) and iFlytek in China’s cloud services market.

ByteDance is reportedly advancing efforts to make its own AI chips as it intends to get an edge over competitors in China’s AI chatbot market.