Yangcheng Evening News reporter Shen Zhao

　　Recently, the reporter found from the Hong Kong company registration website that ByteDance (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. has changed its name to Douyin Group (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., and the effective time is May 6.

In addition, several other companies under ByteDance have also successively changed their names to "Douyin".

This has sparked speculation in the industry that ByteDance will start listing again.

In this regard, the relevant person in charge of Douyin declined to comment to a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News on May 8.

　　IPO rumors have continued in recent years

　　Founded in 2021, ByteDance is one of the fastest-growing Internet giants in China.

As of August 18, 2021, the company has completed a total of 9 rounds of financing. The latest publicly disclosed transaction amount was in October 2018, when the six-year-old ByteDance was valued at $75 billion.

According to the "2021 Hurun China Top 500" ranking released by the Hurun Research Institute, ByteDance's valuation has reached 2.25 trillion yuan.

　　In the past few years, there has been a lot of news about ByteDance's IPO.

In February 2019, a source said that ByteDance may be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology Innovation Board, and relevant departments have contacted the company, hoping that it will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

But soon, ByteDance denied the news.

After that, rumors of ByteDance's spin-off of Douyin's business and independent listing arose.

　　In March 2021, ByteDance appointed Zhou Shouzi, who is based in Singapore, as ByteDance CFO. This was regarded by the outside world as an important node for ByteDance's upcoming IPO. At that time, it also coincided with another domestic short video. The giant Kuaishou listed in Hong Kong soon.

However, just one month later, on April 23, 2021, ByteDance responded on its official headline account: "After careful research, it is believed that the company does not have the conditions for listing, and there is no listing plan at present."

　　Series Integration Ready to go public?

　　Although several previous IPO rumors eventually proved to be "catch the wind."

However, on May 6, ByteDance (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. was renamed Douyin Group (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., and the series of adjustments made by ByteDance in the past six months or so have caused people to reconnect it with the IPO.

　　According to public information, in November 2021, ByteDance adjusted the company's organizational structure, and the company's CEO Liang Rubo announced the establishment of six business segments, namely Douyin, Dali Education, Feishu, Volcano Engine, Chaoxiguangnian and TikTok.

Among them, the Douyin business segment is responsible for the overall development of the company's domestic information and service businesses, including Douyin, Toutiao, Xigua Video, Search, Encyclopedia and other vertical service businesses.

The two core products, Douyin and Toutiao, contributed most of the revenue to ByteDance's domestic business segment.

　　On April 25 this year, ByteDance appointed Julie Gao as its new CFO, with its main offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, China.

According to the data, Micro Motion was previously a senior partner of Skadden International Law Firm and a member of the policy committee of its global governing body.

He has provided legal services for more than 100 companies in the listing and other capital market financing projects, including Meituan, JD.com, etc., and has also provided legal services for many mergers and acquisitions and private equity projects, including Baidu, ByteDance, etc.

　　In addition, the reporter found through Tianyancha on May 9 that recently, ByteDance's ByteDance Co., Ltd., Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing ByteDance Network Technology Co., Ltd. were renamed Douyin Co., Ltd., respectively. Beijing Douyin Information Service Co., Ltd., Douyin Vision (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

Among the 35 core companies under ByteDance, today's headlines, Feishu and other application entities have not changed their names.

　　The possibility of a successful spin-off is greatly increased

　　The above series of actions also made the outside world believe that ByteDance is "reconsidering" the independent listing of Douyin and other businesses as Douyin Group in Hong Kong.

"For the investors behind it, the cash-out period will come." Mo Daiqing, director of the online retail department and senior analyst of the e-commerce research center of Netease, said in an interview with a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News that the current environment for Chinese stocks is not ideal. , listing in Hong Kong is a good choice for ByteDance, and listing through splits greatly increases the possibility of success.

Mo Daiqing also said: "ByteDance's domestic rivals Alibaba and Tencent, which are comparable in size to ByteDance, have already been listed, and Douyin's competitor Kuaishou has also been listed first. Therefore, it is imperative for ByteDance to restart its listing. matter."

　　It is worth mentioning that Kuaishou, known as the “first short video stock” in China, did not perform well after listing in Hong Kong. Its market value dropped from its peak market value of HK$1.78 trillion to HK$256.6 billion, and its market value evaporated by more than HK$1.5 trillion.

For the listing of Douyin, investors also have more expectations beyond short videos.