AppLovin had an agreement to sell itself to the Chinese firm, Orient Hontai Capital for $1.4 billion. The US government, however, objected to the deal. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is a government panel that watches for potential national security threats, and they have been much more restrictive on these types of buyouts, especially since Trump took office.
In order to get around these restrictions, AppLovin and Orient Hontai Capital are restructuring it to make it into a debt investment. They will accept an $841 million debt investment from the company, but will retain ownership. Orient Hantai already owns 9.98% of AppLovin after purchasing that stake for $140 million in January.
AppLovin’s Chief Executive, Adam Foroughi, said, “This fully restructured agreement permits us to maintain full control of our business while accessing additional liquidity to finance our continued global growth.”
While will still have to approve this restructured deal, it is not expected that it will have any issues since the US company retains full control of the business.
