PayPal surged nearly 16% intraday; reports say Stripe has partnered with Advent to make a $53 billion acquisition offer

BlockBeats, July 15: Stripe, the world’s largest private payment company, and the U.S. private equity firm Advent International have jointly proposed acquiring long-established online payments giant PayPal. The acquisition price is $60.5 per share, with a total valuation of over $53 billion, representing a premium of about 28% over PayPal’s Tuesday closing price. Behind the deal is about $50 billion in financing support promised by multiple banks. Under the transaction plan, Stripe and Advent will each hold half of PayPal’s shares. After the news was released, PayPal’s stock price continued to rise by nearly 16% intraday, trading at $54.935, with trading volume exceeding $2.1 billion. PayPal has not yet responded to the proposal, and whether the transaction will be completed cannot be confirmed. Earlier this year in April, the two sides conducted preliminary probing but did not go deeper.

PayPal was once an absolute leader in digital payments, reaching a peak market cap of about $360 billion in 2021. However, with competitors such as Apple Pay and Google Pay steadily eroding its share, PayPal’s market cap in June this year has fallen to about $36 billion—only one tenth of its peak. In contrast, Stripe’s share buyback valuation in February this year already reached $159 billion. In 2025, its global payments market share is expected to be about 20.8% to 29%, second only to PayPal.

Industry analysts say Stripe’s acquisition interest primarily lies in the value of data and transaction flow carried by PayPal’s 434 million consumer accounts. Since 2025, the global fintech M&A deal value has reached $64 billion, up 108% from 2024. Recent deals such as FIS acquiring Global Payments’ card issuing division for $13.5 billion and Capital One acquiring Discover for $51.8 billion have already been closed, indicating that industry consolidation is heating up.