Catenaa, Wednesday, July 15, 2026- PayPal stock jumped over 15% on Wednesday after Stripe and private equity firm Advent International offered $53 billion to acquire it.
Payments company Stripe and Advent International have reportedly made an offer to acquire PayPal at $60.50 per share in a deal that would value the payments giant at more than $53 billion, according to a Reuters report.
The report said Stripe and Advent would each own a 50% stake in PayPal under the proposed transaction.
The offer was reportedly submitted earlier this month and is backed by about $50 billion in committed bank financing.
PayPal stock was down by 18% year to date and 35% lower than one year ago, before the surge on Wednesday, as competitors like Apple Pay, Block, Stripe, and buy now, pay later companies Affirm and Klarna have crowded the market.
The stock has been unable to reclaim its 2021 all-time high of $310, set at the height of the pandemic amid a low-interest-rate environment.
It has spent the past several years grappling with slowing growth and intensifying competition in digital payments, wiping out much of the value it gained during the pandemic.
The company’s market capitalization peaked at about $360 billion in 2021 and fell to as low as roughly $36 billion this year.
The “Big Short” investor Michael Burry, who owns PayPal, said the offer price for the stock was too low.
“I believe the bid will have to rise,” Burry wrote on Wednesday. “The company is well below intrinsic value, and any successful bid should be well above intrinsic value to account for the control premium.
After taking over in March, PayPal CEO Enrique Lores started a sweeping turnaround exercise to simplify the payments provider and sharpen its focus on growth.
In April, the company split its operations into three units covering checkout, consumer financial services Venmo, and payments and crypto, while making a series of management changes.
Despite the valuation premium, William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey said, “We do not think PayPal’s new CEO will likely embrace what could be viewed as a low-ball offer. If the current offer is an opening salvo, we could see Stripe and Advent go as high as $70 per share.”
