ByteDance Ltd, the owner of social media platform TikTok, is tapping banks for a $9.5 billion loan that would be the biggest dollar-denominated corporate facility in Asia ex-Japan, Bloomberg reported, quoting people familiar with the matter.

Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are the coordinators of the latest financing, which carries a tenor of three years and can be extended to a maturity of up to five years, the people reportedly said.

ByteDance’s facility is larger than the earlier-anticipated size — an indication that the borrower is eager to take advantage of Asia’s loan market, which is flush with liquidity amid dismal deal flow, the report added.

ByteDance didn’t respond to a request for comment, the report said.

According to Bloomberg, proceeds of the deal will be partly used to refinance an existing $5 billion dual-tranche facility the group had raised in 2021. They will also be used for working capital purposes.

According to the report, ByteDance is looking to expand beyond its core business of online advertising into areas like e-commerce and generative AI.

At home, it’s among a slew of local big-tech firms that has sunk billions of dollars into research and development of large language models and ChatGPT-style apps.

Abroad, TikTok is planning to roll out its niche live shopping platform in more European markets, after initial success in the US.

Founded in 2012, Beijing-based ByteDance has become one of the leading social media companies in China with the widely used mobile-video application Douyin. It is also the parent company of TikTok, the social-media app popular in the US.

Featured photo credits: Bytedance’s Facebook page

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