Stripe and Advent Bid $53 Billion to Acquire PayPal

Payment company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have jointly made a bid to acquire PayPal. This is reported by Reuters based on two insiders. The offer of $60.50 per share values the payments company at more than $53 billion and represents a premium of approximately 28% over PayPal’s closing price last Tuesday. Banks have lined up around $50 billion in committed financing for the deal.

Parties aim for agreement before end of July

The bid is being submitted earlier this month and the parties involved are targeting an agreement before the end of July, the sources say. However, there is no certainty about a final deal. If the acquisition is successful, Stripe and Advent would each receive an equal stake in PayPal.

The timing of the bid is notable. In recent periods, Stripe has increasingly focused on stablecoin infrastructure and crypto payments. PayPal, for its part, launched its own stablecoin PYUSD in 2023 and has since grown into one of the largest regulated stablecoin issuers in the world. A merger of the two companies would thus create a powerful player at the intersection of traditional payments and crypto.

What does this mean for the crypto market?

If the acquisition goes ahead, it would bring together two companies that are both deeply embedded in the traditional financial world and the crypto ecosystem. Stripe previously acquired Bridge, a platform for stablecoin payments, indicating that the company is fully committed to digital currencies as a means of payment.

PayPal has hundreds of millions of users worldwide and has already gained a foothold in the stablecoin market through PYUSD. An acquisition by Stripe could accelerate the adoption of crypto payments across a significant portion of that user base. The market will therefore be watching closely in the coming weeks to see if the parties actually reach a deal.