- Stripe and Advent International submitted an offer to buy PayPal for approximately $53 billion.
- The companies plan to own the payments giant with an equal stake rather than breaking it up.
Stripe, a global financial services platform, and Advent International, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, just made a bold offer to acquire PayPal Holdings, Inc, a global payments network. The parties reportedly submitted the offer earlier this month.
Stripe and Advent Seek to Buy PayPal at $60.50 per Share
Citing two people familiar with the talks, Reuters reported that Stripe and Advent jointly offered to buy PayPal for $60.50 per share. The price represents a premium of around 27.72% at PYPL’s $47.37 per share on Tuesday’s market close.
The deal puts PayPal’s valuation at around $53 billion. Meanwhile, the sources claimed that several banks have already committed $50 billion in financing.
PayPal has yet to respond to the proposal. Nonetheless, Stripe and Advent expect to advance the negotiations with the online payments giant in the coming weeks.
If a deal materializes, Stripe and Advent plan to own PayPal jointly. Instead of breaking up the company, though, each would hold an equal stake in it.
The sources requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the discussions.
PayPal’s Headwinds
PayPal posted a 7% increase in net revenue to $8.4 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of 2026, translating to a 5% currency-neutral revenue growth. Its transaction margin dollars increased by 3% to $3.8 billion, or 3% to $3.5 billion if excluding interest on customer balances.
Meanwhile, the company’s transaction volume soared by 11% to $464 billion. Payment transactions rose by 7% to $6.5 billion amid a 1% to 58.7-point decline in payment transactions per active account on a 12-month basis.
The business’s cash flow from operations was $1.1 billion while its cash, cash equivalents, and investments totaled $13.5 billion. On the other hand, it recorded a total debt of $11.6 billion.
Despite PayPal’s strong Q1 figures, Zacks Investment Research forecasted market headwinds coming its way in Q2. Hence, the company expects to reflect “low-single-digit” currency-neutral revenue growth contrasted with the same level of decline in transaction margin dollars. Moreover, it could experience a “high-single-digit” fall in non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) EPS (Earnings per Share) from Q1’s $1.34.
Adding pressure is PayPal’s deteriorating market cap. The company notably peaked at a $360 billion valuation in 2021. To date, it has shed much of its value to $41.79 billion.
