TikTok founder now ranked among world's richest

Beijing

JUST last year, the world's most valuable startup, ByteDance Ltd, was being squeezed from all sides.

The Trump administration wanted the Chinese firm, which owns the ubiquitous TikTok video-sharing platform, to get rid of assets. Beijing was cracking down on tech businesses, and India blacklisted some of its social-media apps.

Despite the obstacles, ByteDance kept growing. Now its founder, 38-year-old Zhang Yiming, is among the world's richest people - a distinction that lately has carried increased risks in China.

Shares of the company trade in the private market at a valuation of more than US$250 billion, people familiar with the dealings have said. At that level, Mr Zhang, who owns about a quarter of ByteDance, could be worth more than US$60 billion, placing him alongside Tencent Holdings Ltd's Pony Ma, bottled-water king Zhong Shanshan and members of the Walton and Koch families in the United States, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

ByteDance, famous for its short-video apps and news aggregator Toutiao, more than doubled revenue last year after expanding beyond its core advertising business into areas such as e-commerce and online gaming. It's now weighing options for the initial public offering of some businesses.

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"Zhang is someone who's known for thinking long-term and not easily dissuaded by short-term setbacks," said Ma Rui, partner at venture-capital firm Synaptic Ventures. "He is set on building an enduring, global business."

During its last fundraising round, ByteDance reached a US$180 billion valuation, a person with knowledge of the matter said. That's up from US$20 billion about three years ago, according to CB Insights. But in the private market, some investors recently were asking for the equivalent of a US$350 billion valuation to part with their shares, people familiar have said.

The company's value for private-equity investors is approaching US$400 billion, the South China Morning Post reported. That would mean an even bigger fortune for Mr Zhang.

ByteDance representatives didn't respond to requests for comment.

It's a tough time to be wealthy in China as the government seeks to rein in the country's most powerful corporations and their billionaire founders.

While ByteDance hasn't been singled out as a target, its dominance in social media and war chest for deal-making are sensitive areas the government is looking into.

"There are no more silly games in the US with Trump and potential bans or forced asset sales," said Kirk Boodry, founder of investment research firm Redex Holdings. "But the pressure on tech-share prices and China in particular might make US$250 billion a tough sell," he added, referring to ByteDance's value in private transactions.

With TikTok facing scrutiny in the US and India, Mr Zhang has put more effort into ByteDance's nascent and fast-growing Chinese businesses, which range from gaming to education to e-commerce. That helped it increase sales to about US$35 billion last year and operating profit to US$7 billion, a person familiar with the results said.

But for Mr Zhang, it's not all about immediate payoffs. The affable founder is known for his business philosophy of "delaying satisfactions" as he puts the focus on long-term growth - a message he stressed again during his spiel to employees at the company's ninth anniversary celebration last month.

"Keep an ordinary mind, that's something that sounds easy but important to do," he said. "Put in the plainest words, when hungry, eat, when tired, sleep." BLOOMBERG