(Reuters) – Entrepreneur and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and its consortium of partners in The People’s Bid said on Thursday they proposed to make a formal bid to ByteDance to buy TikTok’s U.S. assets.
The move comes ahead of a Jan. 19 deadline by which ByteDance has to sell the platform or face a ban under a law signed by President Joe Biden on April 24.
The consortium, which did not disclose the value of the proposal, said the financial capacity to complete the deal included expressions of interest from investors – including major private equity funds, family offices, and high net worth individuals – for sufficient equity capital, as well as debt financing from one of the largest banks in the United States.
McCourt and his firm Project Liberty formed the consortium last year to buy social media platform TikTok in the United States.
“By keeping the platform alive without relying on the current TikTok algorithm and avoiding a ban, millions of Americans can continue to enjoy the platform. We look forward to working with ByteDance, President-elect Trump, and the incoming administration to get this deal done,” McCourt said in a statement.
(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Potter)
