If you can't keep up with the latest rumors on TikTok impending doom acquisition, my suggestion is simple: don't. Or instead, enjoy it for what it is: one of the most absurd bakeoff deals in investment banking history.
Walmart and its consistently low prices are in the mix. Oracle is trying to find synergies to make enterprise resource planning software more appealing to Gen Z workers. Triller - who the hell are they again? - is allegedly partnering with an asset management company (and a planet close to the Hoth system) called Centricus according to Bloomberg (to which TikTok replied nah). Twitter is in - maybe? - with Beyoncé's key corporate strategic advice on the social network's debt underwriting strategy.
It seems that SoftBank is looking for, and also Just happened yesterday announced its intention to quickly sell $ 14 billion of its core mobile services business in Japan to quickly liquidate. (The result is that at least TikTok has lost most of its value before SoftBank's investment!)
Everything here is absurd. TikTok is absurd. Videos of people doing what they are doing on TikTok are absurd. The growth of TikTok is absurd. A president setting a deadline for the sale of a company is absurd. This process is absurd. Selling a big company like TikTok in 45 days is absurd. Walmart is absurd (and even a mirage, since they're still banned from New York City for fear of someone getting discounted soap in a pandemic).
A few weeks ago I warned to "beware of bankers" peddling rumors about TikTok. And this is still the file quite right answer, in the sense that obviously we'll get to the far reaches of the M&A universe as bankers try to save TikTok's final sale price ("We're getting closer to the Centricus system, sir!"). But this approach is much more boring rather than assuming that every rumor is true and trying to imagine Wall Street advisors dragging themselves into this swamp of offers.
My advice here is simple: let's take off our analyst hat for a week and put on our clown costumes, since - and it's crucial that you don't work at TikTok for this or have money up for grabs in the company - this story is in reality enjoyable.
COVID-19 is serious, there are a few weeks left to the American presidential elections, social justice in our cities is of fundamental importance. Just in the last few hours, T'Challa is dead, Hurricane Laura tore the Gulf Coast apart, and Japan's longest serving post-war prime minister (yes, I know, that's a lot of qualifiers) just stepped down a due to health problems. It can get heavy on the headlines these days.
So it's just nice to know that you can go to the company pages and do a farce.
Perhaps this whole story will eventually turn into the next great business book à la Barbarians at the Gate. But at least the barbarians then knew how to destroy a company with the right levels of leverage. Here, you have the pre-set debris of a business that is offered by the company that brought us The Greeter.
Whatever this saga brings next (hint: Microsoft purchase of the company), I'll just say this: the warmth and cheer that TikTok has provided to millions of teens albeit short videos of awkward dance routines is the same joy that gives sharp financial analysts a caustic eye on the markets. In what has been an unhappy year for all of us, for that little twinkle of fun, I'm grateful.
