The main thing for the morning: the fate of TikTok in the U.S., a record rate in Japan and €90 billion for Ukraine

TikTok has launched a process to separate from ByteDance through a deal with Oracle and U.S. investors, seeking to remove political and regulatory risks in the United States. The Bank of Japan raised its key rate to a 30-year high amid the country's high inflation and record government debt. These and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of December 19.

TikTok has agreed to sell its U.S. operations to a group of investors led by Oracle, launching a long-discussed separation from China's ByteDance, Bloomberg reports.

TikTok CEO Shaw Tzu Chu told employees that binding agreements have been signed to create a US joint venture with majority ownership by US investors. Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX are participating in the deal. Closing is expected on January 22, 2026, subject to Chinese regulatory approval.

The new company will be independent and will take control of data protection, content moderation and algorithm security in the US. It will be governed by a US majority board of directors. ByteDance will retain a 19.9% stake, however, and its algorithms will be licensed to train the new system on US data hosted by Oracle. The deal is designed to ease the long-standing political and regulatory conflict surrounding TikTok, although critics doubt it completely eliminates the influence of the Chinese owner, the agency said.

The Bank of Japan raised the key short-term rate by 25 bps, to 0.75% - the highest level since 1995, continuing the normalization of monetary policy, writes CNBC. The decision coincided with market expectations and provoked a sell-off in government bonds: the yield on 10-year bonds rose to 2.02%, the highest since 1999.

Inflation in Japan has exceeded the target level of 2% for 44 consecutive months, in November price growth amounted to 2.9%, although real wages declined for the tenth month in a row, the channel points out. The Central Bank of Japan expects core inflation to slow below 2% in the second half of 2026, but believes that the cycle of moderate growth in prices and wages will continue. At the same time, raising interest rates increases the risks to the economy against the backdrop of shrinking GDP and record government debt - almost 230% of GDP, CNBC notes.

European Union countries have agreed on a €90bn aid package for Ukraine for 2026-2027, European Council President António Costa said, CNBC reported. Initially, the possibility of using frozen Russian assets worth €210bn was discussed, but this idea was abandoned due to legal risks and fears of lawsuits. As a result, the EU decided to finance the support through joint borrowing under the guarantees of the Union's budget. Since the beginning of the conflict in 2022, the EU's cumulative assistance to Kiev has exceeded €187 billion.

Shares of ICICI Prudential AMC, one of India's largest management companies, rose 20 percent on the day of its debut after its IPO for 106 billion rupees ($1.17 billion), CNBC wrote. The offering was at the top end of the price range at 2165 rupees per share, with the securities rising as high as 2593 rupees in trading. Demand for the IPO exceeded supply by more than 39 times, mostly from institutional investors; the retail portion was only 2.5 times subscribed.

Anchor investors include GIC and Temasek from Singapore and India's LIC. ICICI Prudential AMC manages the country's largest amount of assets in active mutual funds and has 15.5 million retail customers. The interest in the offering reflects a broader trend, the channel notes: retail investment in mutual funds in India is growing rapidly and funds under management could rise to $3.3 trillion by 2035, according to Bain estimates.

- Japan's broad Topix index was up 1.02 percent, while the Nikkei 225 was up 1.26 percent.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index added 0.57 percent, while mainland China's CSI 300 Index added 0.36 percent.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was up 1.03%, while the Kosdaq was up 1.42%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.47 percent.

- S&P 500 futures were little changed, Nasdaq Composite futures were up 0.13%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average exchange-traded contracts were down 0.26%.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor