[HN Gopher] TikTok's popular influencer sold company for $975M t...
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TikTok's popular influencer sold company for $975M to company doing
$6M revenue
Author : pseudolus
Score : 22 points
Date : 2026-02-02 18:48 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| ProjectBarks wrote:
| I saw headlines such as ANPA bought Khaby Lames company for
| ~$900M but nobody is pointing out how sketchy it looks.
|
| What I gathered, the $975M deal was paid in stock = 75,000,000
| new ANPA shares to the sellers which is roughly $13 a share.
|
| If they really issue 75M new shares (vs ~12.5M outstanding, ish),
| doesn't that basically destroy the scarcity and force the price
| to re-anchor closer to the $13ish deal valuation? Like post, deal
| you're at ~87.5M shares, so even a ~$1B valuation is like $11/$13
| a share not $60/$100/$180.
|
| And... $975M for an influencer operating company sounds totally
| crazy if there isn't any real revenue/EBITDA that supports it.
| Does anyone have the actual numbers for Step Distinctive / Khabys
| business? Any comparable deals where an influencer brand was
| valued anywhere close to this?
|
| What am I missing?
| ProjectBarks wrote:
| Found a good Forbes Article [https://web.archive.org/web/202602
| 01051310/https://www.forbe...]
|
| > Hong Kong-based Rich Sparkle Holdings (ANPA) reported to the
| SEC on Jan. 9 it was acquiring Lame's Step Distinctive Limited,
| and announced the $975 million all-stock transaction closed in
| a press release two days later.
|
| > Rich Sparkle boasted the deal would offer a "structured,
| exclusive, full-chain, platform-style commercialization system"
| around Lame, who would be a "controlling shareholder," and
| whose likeness would be replicated by an "AI Digital Twin."
|
| > Soon after, Rich Sparkle's stock skyrocketed over 650%,
| reaching a high of $180.64 per share on January 15, with Lame's
| stake worth $6.6 billion (based on his 49% ownership of Step
| Distinctive, which gave him a 41% stake in its buyer), though
| due to limited disclosure requirements for foreign entities,
| it's unclear whether Lame sold any shares.
|
| > Rich Sparkle had first listed on Nasdaq six months prior in
| July, in a small offering of 1.25 million shares priced at $4
| each with an implied enterprise value of about $50 million,
| according to SEC filings, and it disclosed 2024 revenue of
| under $6 million from "designing and printing high quality
| financial materials."
|
| > Rich Sparkle's sudden shift in focus, explosive stock growth
| and quick crash---it's dropped as low as $41, 77% from its peak
| ---has some critics raising "red flags."
|
| > Lame, who has over 160 million followers on TikTok and 78
| million on Instagram, only commented on the deal 11 days after
| Rich Sparkle announced it had closed, saying "Congratulations
| to the team at ANPA very excited to be a shareholder and
| looking forward to doing great things!" (Lame and Rich Sparkle
| have not responded to Forbes' requests for comment).
|
| > Based on Rich Sparkle's most recent stock price, Lame's net
| worth appears to be $3 billion, but given its tiny float of
| less than 5%, Forbes would value it based on its financials and
| not its stock price, meaning he's nowhere close to being a
| billionaire.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Your average crypto scam, just now being executed in the open
| in the stock market.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| New reddit version link:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/1qtig67/tik...
| cal_dent wrote:
| I think it was the ft blog, alphaville, which did a series on
| everything in the economy now being fyre festival. That was years
| ago when fyre festival debacle first happened, but it really
| feels like we're at the zenith of that same idea at the moment.
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