The payments company Stripe and the private-equity firm Advent International have made a joint offer to buy PayPal, in a bid that values the company at more than $53 billion, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. It would be one of the biggest deals ever in financial technology, and it is, for now, an unconfirmed proposal rather than an agreed transaction.
The terms
The suitors offered $60.50 a share, about a 28% premium to PayPal's previous closing price, according to the Reuters account. The bid is backed by roughly $50 billion in committed financing from banks, and the offer, submitted this month, followed an initial approach in April, per the report carried by U.S. News. Under the plan, Stripe and Advent would own PayPal jointly in equal stakes and keep it intact rather than break it up. PayPal has not publicly responded, and there is no guarantee the approach leads to a deal.
Who is bidding
Stripe is one of the world's most valuable private companies, a payments-infrastructure firm that processes transactions for millions of businesses. Bloomberg reported it was valued at about $159 billion earlier this year. Advent International is a large global buyout firm that has done many big technology and financial-services deals. Pairing a fast-growing private company with a deep-pocketed financial sponsor is a common way to fund an acquisition of this size.
PayPal, by contrast, is a public company and one of the original names in digital payments. Spun out of eBay a decade ago, it has since faced tougher competition from newer fintech rivals, from big technology platforms bundling their own wallets, and from a wave of alternative checkout options, pressures that have weighed on its stock and, arguably, made it a target.
Why it matters
If it happens, the deal would reshape the plumbing of online payments, uniting Stripe's business-focused infrastructure with PayPal's large consumer network and its Venmo and Braintree units. It would also be a notable case of a private company swallowing a public competitor, a move that signals confidence in PayPal's underlying value despite its recent struggles.
The hurdles
Two big questions stand between the offer and a completed deal. The first is whether PayPal's board and shareholders judge $60.50 a share to be enough; a 28% premium is meaningful, but boards often push back on opening bids. The second, and larger, is antitrust. Combining two of the most significant players in online payments would draw close review from US competition regulators, and potentially others abroad, a process that can take many months and sometimes forces asset sales as a condition of approval. Until PayPal responds and regulators weigh in, this remains a reported bid, and Boursel will report the outcome rather than assume it.
