TikTok owner ByteDance offers to buy back shares from staff at $160 apiece

Shanghai/Hong Kong: China’s ByteDance, the parent of short video app TikTok, is offering to buy back shares from its employees outside the United States for $160 apiece, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, a plan that the company confirmed.

The price per restricted stock unit is in line with an offer it made to current and former US employees in October, according to a Reuters report which said the company was looking to buy at least $300 million worth of stock at $160 per share.

The price valued the company at $223.5 billion, about 26 per cent lower than a valuation a year earlier, the Reuters report said. Last year, ByteDance was valued at $300 billion in a buyback program offered to its non-US employees.