PayPal Holdings NASDAQ:PYPL rose 15.25% in premarket trading after Reuters reported that Stripe and private equity firm Advent International made a joint offer to buy the company for $60.50 a share, valuing it at more than $53 billion. The bid, submitted earlier this month, carries roughly a 28% premium to Tuesday's close and is backed by about $50 billion in committed bank financing, people familiar with the matter said. Stripe, a privately held payments processor last valued at $159 billion, would own PayPal jointly with Advent at an equal stake.
The approach targets a company that has fallen a long way. PayPal's market value peaked near $360 billion in 2021 and dropped to about $36 billion this year, a decline of more than 40% over the past twelve months as Apple NASDAQ:AAPL Pay, Google NASDAQ:GOOGL Pay, and other rivals took share. CEO Enrique Lores, in the job since March, has been splitting operations into checkout, Venmo, and payments and crypto units to sharpen the turnaround.
PayPal, Stripe, and Advent all declined to comment. Stripe and Advent haven't received a response from PayPal and want to advance talks in the coming weeks, though the sources cautioned a deal isn't certain.