Billionaire McCourt open to keeping original investors in any TikTok deal

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By Dawn Chmielewski

(Reuters) -Businessman Frank McCourt is “open-minded” to keeping TikTok’s existing investors, including the founder, involved after any deal to buy the U.S. operations of the Chinese-owned short-form video app, the U.S. billionaire told Reuters on Thursday.

McCourt said in an interview his consortium has made a formal offer to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, confirming reports that it values the app without its algorithm at around $20 billion.

The bid is not dependent on the involvement of U.S. investment firms such as General Atlantic, Susquehanna and Sequoia Capital that own stakes in ByteDance.

“We’re also commercial and open-minded to keeping existing investors involved, including the founder,” said McCourt, who, together with his firm Project Liberty, formed a consortium last year to attempt to buy the social media platform’s U.S. operations.

The involvement of ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming would be subject to approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McCourt said Project Liberty has developed technology that will address the national security concerns that led Congress to adopt legislation calling for ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok by Sunday, or face a ban in the U.S.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser said on Thursday the new administration will keep TikTok alive in the United States if there is a viable deal.

(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Additonal reporting by Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Chris Reese, Nia Williams and Rod Nickel)