Centricus’s 11th-Hour Bid Adds Intrigue to Waiting Game on TikTok

Less than two days after Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. submitted rival bids to China’s ByteDance Ltd. to acquire TikTok’s U.S. business, a dark-horse possible third bidder emerged as the two software makers waited for a response to their offers. On Friday, Centricus Asset Management Ltd. and Triller Inc. made a last-minute pitch to buy TikTok’s operations in several countries for $20 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Centricus and Triller submitted their bid to Beijing-based ByteDance, this person said, for TikTok’s assets in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and India, including $10 billion in cash up front and $10 billion in profit-sharing from the resulting venture, the person said. A representative for Centricus confirmed the company had made an offer, while a TikTok spokeswoman pushed back on that potential deal, calling it “preposterous.”

Under the expectant watch of executives and government officials from Seattle and Silicon Valley to Arkansas and Washington, ByteDance’s decision on which bid to choose — or whether to sell the app’s assets at all — could come as soon as this weekend, a person familiar with that company’s thinking said.

Here’s what we know: