Stripe and Advent International make unsolicited $53B bid to acquire PayPal

Stripe, the world’s most valuable private fintech company, has teamed up with private equity giant Advent International to make an unsolicited bid for PayPal Holdings at $60.50 per share. The deal values PayPal at over $53 billion, representing a 28% premium over its closing price on July 14.

What the bid looks like

The offer, submitted on July 15, comes backed by approximately $50 billion in committed bank financing.

Stripe and Advent plan to take equal ownership stakes in a combined entity. Neither company intends to break up PayPal’s existing business structure. The plan is to keep PayPal running as a unified operation.

PayPal’s stock surged between 13% and 20% during premarket trading on July 15.

Why Stripe wants PayPal

Stripe has built its business primarily on the infrastructure side of payments, powering checkout for companies like Amazon, Shopify merchants, and countless SaaS platforms. PayPal, by contrast, owns a massive consumer-facing brand with hundreds of millions of user accounts and a suite of products including Venmo.

What this means for investors

An unsolicited bid is just that: unsolicited. PayPal’s board hasn’t accepted anything, and there’s no guarantee this deal gets done. The 28% premium is substantial, but PayPal’s board could argue the company is worth more.

For traders, the immediate 13-20% premarket jump already prices in a significant portion of the deal premium. Anyone buying at those elevated levels is essentially making a bet that the acquisition closes near the offered price, or that a bidding war pushes the price even higher.

PayPal has launched its own stablecoin and Stripe has integrated crypto payment options.

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