ByteDance doesn’t want to wait anymore

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Text / Gao Xinchi

Source/Zero State LT (ID: LingTai_LT)

Anxious.

After a lapse of 5 months, ByteDance (hereinafter referred to as Byte) once again welcomed a new CFO, which is also the second CFO since the establishment of Byte.

On April 25, nearly half a year after announcing the Byte BU strategy, Liang Rubo issued an internal letter announcing that Julie Gao would join ByteDance as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), with his main offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. Although the full text of this internal letter is only more than 600 words, its importance is no less than the adjustment of the organizational structure six months ago. Liang Rubo mentioned in the letter that Julie, as a senior lawyer, has provided legal consulting services for a number of technology companies including listing, mergers and acquisitions and financing.

There are various signs that although the external environment is not optimistic, Byte is still very eager to go public. After the airborne of Micro Motion, the mystery of the byte listing may come to an end.

The two CFOs reunite

An interesting thing is that the two CFOs in the history of Byte, Micro Motion and the previous Zhou Shouzi have already intersected.

According to public reports, Zhou Shouzi and Micro Motion have known each other for many years. When Zhou was a partner of DST China, he had cooperated with Micro Motion in a number of technology business transactions. The relationship between Zhou Shouzi and Byte also began in the DST period. During the most difficult headline period for Byte, that is, from 2012 to 2013, Zhou Shouzi promoted DST’s investment in Byte.

Before leaving DST and joining Byte, Zhou Shouzi served as CFO at Xiaomi and Base was in Singapore. Zhou Shouzi’s achievements that attracted much attention during his time at Xiaomi were: promoting Xiaomi’s listing, so he also had the aura of “manipulating Xiaomi’s Hong Kong stock market”. Under his single-handed promotion, in 2018, Xiaomi completed its listing in Hong Kong. There is also a high level of participation behind this achievement. As a senior lawyer, she mainly provided corporate legal services for Xiaomi’s listing at that time. According to the records of Ryan Capital, at the time of Xiaomi’s IPO in 2018, there were a total of 5 legal teams behind it, among which was Skadden International Law Firm (hereinafter referred to as Skadden), and Micro Motion was one of its principals.

The listing of Xiaomi can be described as twists and turns. Zhou Shouzi and Gao Zhun fought side by side for a period of hardships during this period.

On January 13, 2018, when preparing for the listing of Xiaomi, Zhou Shouzi posted a Weibo, “I especially like a picture inside of us.” There is a sentence on the picture below, “In the next year, even sleep It’s all a waste of time.” The financial writer Fan Haitao recorded in the book, “He only remembers that he was in the office every Saturday and Sunday, making repeated revisions with the financial, legal, public relations teams, as well as a number of investment banks, law firms and other institutions. prospectus.”

Compared with Zhou Shouzi’s rich experience in DST, he has deeply participated in the investment of Ali, JD.com, Xiaomi and other projects, and later promoted the dazzling achievements of Xiaomi’s listing. Although the new CFO of Byte, Micro Motion, has never been the promoter of a major company’s listing, he has also been deeply involved in the listing of many Chinese Internet companies.

In addition to providing legal support for Xiaomi’s listing, in the 2018 upsurge of Chinese concept stocks going to the United States and Hong Kong for listing, Micro Motion’s team also handled companies including Meituan, Pinduoduo, iQiyi, NIO, etc., with a total financing of more than 200 One hundred million U.S. dollars. Statistics at that time showed that the clients owned by STAR, where Micro Motion is located, included 17 of the top 20 Chinese companies listed in the United States (ranked by market capitalization).

Looking at Gao Zhun’s resume, the experience of this Shanghai female scholar can’t help but make a case. As a student, Gao Zhun successively obtained a Bachelor of Laws from Peking University, a Master of Sociology from the University of Alabama, and a Doctor of Laws from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2009, Micro Motion joined Skadden as a partner. Before joining Byte, she was a member of the policy committee of the top law firm’s global governing body.

After joining Byte, as the CFO, Micro Motion will become the only female executive who reports to Liang Rubo other than Zhang Nan, the No. 1 position of Douyin.

The “mystery” of byte listing

A year ago, Byte ushered in its first CFO since its establishment, which subsequently led to many speculations about the listing of Byte. Until the organizational structure adjustment in November 2021, Zhou Shouzi will no longer serve as the CFO of ByteDance. With the addition of Micro Motion, whether Byte can be listed has once again become the focus of outside attention. According to 36 Krypton’s news from people close to Byte, Byte or Douyin may restart the IPO process.

The news of Byte’s listing can be traced back to 2018. Since then, with Zhou Shouzi’s airborne CFO, related news and rumors began to climax. Regarding the listing of Bytes, the initial news was the debate on “U.S. stocks or Hong Kong stocks, who will Bytes end up with”, and then with the emergence of the Science and Technology Innovation Board, there are more possibilities for Bytes to go public.

In February 2019, a source said that Byte may be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, saying that relevant departments have contacted Byte, hoping that it will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. However, this news was quickly denied by Byte. In 2020, there are rumors that Byte may seek an independent listing of its Douyin-related business. In October of that year, some media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that ByteDance was considering a separate listing of the Douyin business in Hong Kong, and Goldman Sachs and many other investment banks had communicated with ByteDance about underwriting. In this regard, the relevant person in charge of Byte responded that they are considering some business listing plans, but have not yet finalized.

Since then, with uncertainties such as geopolitics and changes in the regulatory environment, these speculations and rumors have finally come to an end.

On March 24, 2021, Zhang Yiming announced the joining of Zhou Shouzi in an internal letter, and this nearly ten-year-old company ushered in its first CFO. Because Zhou previously traded Xiaomi’s listing, which was quite talked about by the outside world, and was the first CFO of Byte. The outside world has more conjectures about the listing of bytes. At that time, Kuaishou happened to have just landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and became the “first stock of short videos”. This made Zhou Shouzi’s joining Byte received more attention, and the industry regarded Byte’s move as a precursor to listing.

However, on April 23, 2021, Byte responded in the official headline, “After careful research, it is believed that the company does not have the conditions for listing, and there is no listing plan at present.” A week later, Zhou Shouzi also served as the CEO of TikTok. More than half a month later, Zhang Yiming stepped down as CEO, leaving the problem of going public to his successor.

In October 2021, there was news that the Byte IPO may be delayed until the end of 2022. But a month later, Liang Rubo issued an internal letter on the adjustment of ByteDance’s organizational structure, mentioning that Zhou Shouzi would no longer serve as CFO, and the company’s finance department would report directly to Liang Rubo, which was regarded by the outside world as a signal that ByteDance would not be listed in the short term.

Until now, Byte has ushered in an airborne CFO again.

TikTok may be listed separately

As a company aiming at “globalization”, the development of Byte has always been affected by the external environment.

In October 2020, due to TikTok being sanctioned in the United States, Zhang Yiming and Byte received a lot of pressure from domestic public opinion. At the same time, TikTok also suffered a twists and turns in the coaching change, airborne a middle-aged white male Kevin Mayer as CEO.

In order to convince Mayer to join, Zhang Yiming also appointed him as the global COO of Bytes, in charge of the overseas functional departments of Bytes. But perhaps the risk exceeded expectations, and Mayer only served at Byte for just 3 months. After Mayer left, the current TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas temporarily took over the management responsibilities of CEO until Zhou Shouzi took over the position in May last year, but in November, Zhou Shouzi stepped down as CFO. The news dashed expectations that it would lead TikTok to the market.

Now, with the addition of Micro Motion, the two may partner again to lead TikTok to complete the listing plan. According to Liang Rubo’s disclosure in the internal letter, Micro Motion and Zhou Shouzi will work together in Singapore.

A coincidence is that the relationship between Micro Motion and Byte is also closely related to TikTok. Liang Rubo mentioned in the internal letter that since 2016, Micro Motion has cooperated with Byte acquisition and financing projects many times.

The acquisition of Musical.ly in 2017 was a key part of Byte’s short video layout. Public reports show that Musical.ly’s initial target was Facebook. After that, Kuaishou, Tencent and other companies have made offers, but they were eventually captured by Byte. This investment has become the highest return on Byte’s deal. . The legal services for this transaction were provided by Micro Motion. Since then, Micro Motion has also participated in the acquisition of Mutong Games and multiple rounds of private equity financing by Byte.

Like Zhou Shouzi, this new female CFO not only has first-class business skills, but is also diligent enough. Micro Motion likes a book called “Outliers: The Story of Success”, which has a classic quote, “To be truly proficient in a field, in addition to talent, one must also Put in about 10,000 hours of effective training.”

In the years when Micro Motion just returned from the United States, in order to keep up with the rapid development of the Internet in China, Micro Motion almost made such an investment. “In the past ten years, I have never left my computer and BlackBerry for more than 24 hours, including during maternity leave.” This admirable woman once described herself.

As early as when Zhou Shouzi was also the CEO of TikTok, there were many voices who believed that Zhou Shouzi, who also served as CFO, might lead TikTok to land on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and complete a new puzzle in his life. Prior to this, there was also news that TikTok had launched an IPO, but things did not develop in the direction expected by the outside world. Today, the addition of Micro Motion may help Zhou Shouzi achieve this goal, and Byte may soon usher in its first IPO.

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