PayPal shares jumped about 15% on Wednesday following a report that Stripe and the private equity firm Advent International had made a joint offer to buy the payments giant.
The $60.50-per-share bid values PayPal at more than $53 billion and would see Stripe and Advent hold an equal stake, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
PayPal’s stock rose as much as 19% in premarket trading before paring some gains.
Stripe was valued at $159 billion in a February tender offer, while PayPal’s market cap stood at nearly $42 billion at Tuesday’s close. Stripe and Advent’s offer would represent a premium of about 28% for PayPal.
Reuters reported that Stripe and Advent’s bid was backed by roughly $50 billion in committed financing from banks and that PayPal has yet to respond.
PayPal, Stripe, and Advent declined to comment.
A takeover would see a payments upstart swallow the incumbent. PayPal, founded in 1998, was an early pioneer of online payments, while Stripe was launched more than a decade later. Stripe primarily serves businesses, while PayPal’s core products are consumer-facing, though both operate in each other’s markets.
At more than $53 billion, the deal would rank among some of the largest tech acquisitions, topping Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter (now X) acquisition and Microsoft’s $26.2 billion LinkedIn acquisition.
The bid comes after a steep decline in PayPal’s valuation in recent years. Its market capitalization peaked at about $360 billion in 2021 and fell to as low as roughly $36 billion this year, as rivals including Apple Pay, Klarna, and Google Pay gained market share.
Enrique Lores, who became PayPal’s CEO in March, has since launched a turnaround effort, splitting the company into three units and targeting about $1.5 billion in cost savings over the coming years.
