U.S. law firms Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Davis Polk & Wardwell, and Indonesia's Widyawan & Partners have guided Chinese entertainment giant TikTok's $1.5 billion investment in Indonesia's largest digital and e-commerce platform, GoTo.
TikTok has agreed to spend $840 million to buy most of Indonesian tech conglomerate GoTo's e-commerce unit - a move that appears to allow it to restart its online shopping business in Southeast Asia's largest economy. It also said it will invest further in Tokopedia, which is Indonesia's biggest e-commerce platform, for a total outlay of $1.5 billion, Reuters reported.
TikTok had been forced to close its relatively new e-commerce service, TikTok Shop, in Indonesia after the country banned online shopping on social media platforms in September, citing the need to protect smaller merchants and users' data.
Under this deal, TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance, will buy 75 percent of Tokopedia. Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia's businesses will be combined under the existing PT Tokopedia entity. The shopping features within the TikTok app in Indonesia will be operated and maintained by the enlarged entity.
The Skadden team advising TikTok on the deal was led by Hong Kong corporate partners Haiping Li and Jonathan Stone. The supporting team included Hong Kong-based antitrust partner Andrew Foster and London-based tax partner Alex Jupp.
The Widyawan team, which also advised TikTok, was led by corporate partner Teguh Arwiko. Widyawan operates in association with Magic Circle firm Linklaters.
The Davis Polk team representing GoTo on the deal was led by partner Miranda So.
