On April 25, Leifeng News, ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo announced in an internal full staff letter that Julie Gao, a senior partner at Skadden, a world-renowned law firm, will join ByteDance as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), with its main offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.
In November last year, ByteDance made organizational restructuring and reorganized its business into six business segments: Douyin, Dali Education, Feishu, Volcano Engine, Chaoxi Lightyear and TikTok, and the heads of related business segments all reported to Liang Rubo.
The adjustment also involved an important personnel adjustment: TikTok head Zhou Shouzi was no longer the CFO of ByteDance, and the company's finance department reported to Liang Rubo.
So far, byteDance's CFO has been vacant for 5 months. According to people familiar with the matter, The GPC will join ByteDance in May.
According to The Introduction Page of High-precision on Skadden's official website, byteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly, Mu Hitomi Game Company, and several rounds of private equity financing have been deeply involved in the process.
Prior to Skadden, Henchen was a senior partner at Skadden and a member of the Policy Committee of its global governing body. He has provided legal services for the listing of more than 100 companies and other capital market financing projects, including Meituan, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Xiaomi, etc. She has also provided legal services for many M&A and private equity projects, including Baidu and ByteDance.
According to incomplete statistics, his participation in M&A and private placement projects are as follows:
Baidu Group's multiple transactions, including the US$1.9 billion private equity financing on behalf of its financial services group, the US$3.6 billion proposed acquisition of YY Live, and the establishment of Baidu Venture Capital and Baidu Capital;
2. ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly and Mu Hitomi Game Company, as well as private equity financing, with a total transaction amount of more than US$20 billion;
3. Didi Chuxing's acquisition of Uber China, merger with Kuaidi Taxi, and more than $5.5 billion in private financing with SoftBank;
4. JD Group acquired Tencent's e-commerce platform business and assets, spun off JD Finance, invested in Vipshop, and issued shares to Google through PIPE, with a total transaction value of more than US$10 billion;
5. Meituan completed its $3.3 billion Series B and $4 billion Series C preferred stock financings, acquiring Mobike and other projects for $2.7 billion, with a total value of more than $10 billion;
6. Ctrip Group's acquisition of Qunar, Ctrip's acquisition of eLong from Expedia, the controlling shareholder of eLong Travel. and other shareholders, and its strategic cooperation and financing with Priceline, with a total transaction value of more than US$10 billion;
7. Youku Tudou was acquired by Alibaba Group for US$5.6 billion in full cash, merged with Tudou for US$1.1 billion, and sold US$1.22 billion in private equity shares of Alibaba Group and Yunfeng Capital;
8. 58 Group and other buyers acquired QAQ.com, issued shares and convertible bonds to Tencent Group, and its privatization transactions, with a total transaction value of more than US$15 billion;
9. The special committees of the board of directors of Perfect World and Qihoo 360 conducted privatization acquisitions of US$1.1 billion and US$9.3 billion respectively;
10. Ecar.com sold US$1.55 billion to JD.com and Tencent Group, established a strategic cooperation with AutoTrader and privatized e-Car.com;
11. BTG Hotels (Group) Co., Ltd. and other buyers made a US$1.1 billion privatization acquisition of Homeinns Hotel Group;
12. Sina and Weibo sold part of Weibo's shares to Alibaba Group, Sina's shareholder proxy voting rights competition, and Sina's $2.6 billion privatization transaction;
13. Good Future Education completed about US$5 billion in private equity financing;
14. Yixin completed more than US$1 billion in equity investment and strategic transactions with consortiums including Baidu, JD.com and Tencent;
15. ZTO Express completed a private equity financing of US$1.38 billion and a strategic cooperation with Alibaba and Cainiao;
16. AutoNavi Holdings, Univision Technology and Easy Media and their shareholders conducted a multi-billion dollar share sale with Alibaba Group;
It also includes private equity financing from a number of companies, such as AutoNavi Holdings, Bilibili, ByteDance, Huaxing Capital, Dada Group, Didi International, Dianping, Shell Housing, Innolux, JD Group, Leju, Liulishuo, Ideal Automobile, Meituan, NioLai Automobile, Good Future Education, Yixin Group and Zhongtong Express.
Baidu Encyclopedia shows that Gao Zhun was born in Shanghai, received a bachelor's degree in law from Peking University, a master's degree in sociology from the University of Alabama, and a doctorate in law from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been a lawyer for more than 20 years.
In 2003, she participated in Ctrip's IPO, providing it with listing counsel services. This is the first Chinese IPO project she has participated in. In 2009, GAL joined Skadden As a partner. In 2018, Chinese companies ushered in a wave of listings, and Gao Zhun participated in the IPOs of a number of Chinese technology companies, covering 7 of the top ten IPO in the industry that year.
At present, ByteDance's organizational structure is composed of three major sectors: 2C, 2B, and international business. Among them, the 2C business includes three parts: Douyin, Vigorous Education, and Sunrise Lightyear; the 2B business includes Feishu and Volcano Engine; and the international business is mainly the TikTok sector, including the extension business of TikTok platform business and overseas e-commerce.
From the perspective of revenue structure, Douyin and TikTok are the current revenue head sources of ByteDance, and due to the impact of the "double reduction" policy and the game version policy, the weight of vigorous education and sunrise lightyear in the group has declined.
The addition of High-precision may further enhance byte's financial capabilities, and it is not ruled out that it will take over the unfinished listing of the weekly capital in the future.
According to Reuters, ByteDance's total revenue grew 70% year-on-year to about $58 billion in 2021, a slower growth rate than a year ago. In 2020, the company's total revenue grew by more than 100% to $34.3 billion.
As one of the world's largest private companies, ByteDance traded earlier this year at a valuation of about $300 billion.
In May 2021, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming announced the completion of the transition of byteDance CEO responsibilities by the end of 2021.
The organizational structure adjustment in November last year means that the handover between Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo has been completed as scheduled, and Zhang Yiming is no longer responsible for byteDance's specific business.
In addition, the outside world generally believes that this adjustment has released some signals: for example, ByteDance has merged today's headlines, watermelon video, search, encyclopedia and domestic vertical service businesses into Douyin. From another point of view, this also shows that today's headlines, watermelon videos, and searches have weakened their position inside ByteDance.
Today's headlines belong to ByteDance's fortune business, but after years of rapid development, the entire information flow has entered a tired period, coupled with the rise of Vibrato, today's headlines have a downward trend in the strategic position within ByteDance.
From the current situation, many of ByteDance's businesses are being ruled by a group of post-80s generations. In the short 10 years since its founding in 2012, ByteDance has formed a unique talent pattern when it has grown rapidly.
At present, in addition to Zhang Lidong was born in 1979, including Liang Rubo, the core layer of ByteDance is "post-80s". More than half of them graduated in computer science, including Liang Rubo, Chen Lin, Xie Xin, and Yang Zhenyuan.
At present, the top core executives of ByteDance are: Zhang Nan, the number one of Douyin, Chen Lin, the number one of vigorous education, Xie Xin, the number one of Feishu, Yang Zhenyuan, the number one of volcanoes, Yan Zhi, the first leader of Chaoxi Lightyear, Zhou Zhizi, the first leader of Tiktok, Zhang Lidong, the number one of commercial business, and Hua Wei, the head of HR and MO (management office).
Since the beginning of this year, ByteDance has experienced a series of layoffs, basically bidding farewell to the continuous expansion strategy of Zhang Yiming's era, entering the stage of Liang Rubo's layoffs and efficiency, and bidding farewell to the period of barbaric growth.
Today, with the addition of high-quality law firm partners, for ByteDance, it is not only a core general, but also expected to restart the listing plan with the help of high-precision.