The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to people familiar with the matter, payment processing company Stripe and private equity investment company Advent International have proposed to buy PayPal (PYPL.US) for 60.50 US dollars per share, a premium of about 28% over the stock's closing price on Tuesday, and the overall valuation exceeds 53 billion US dollars.
According to reports, the acquisition plan has received the bank's promised financing support of about 50 billion US dollars. The report said that the two acquirers plan to jointly own PayPal and will not split the company; both parties will each hold 50% of the shares.
As early as February of this year, it was reported that Stripe is considering buying all or part of PayPal's business. People familiar with the matter said that as an unlisted company and one of the most valuable companies in the industry, Stripe has expressed initial interest in a possible acquisition of this digital payments pioneer company or its assets.
PayPal was founded in the late 1990s and was an early player in the digital payments space. However, as competitors such as Apple (AAPL.US) and Google (GOOGL.US) continue to seize market share, it has been difficult for PayPal to successfully complete the modernization of payment technology in recent years.
People familiar with the matter said in May this year that PayPal plans to cut employees by about 20% over the next two to three years. The layoff plan is one of the key steps taken by the new CEO Enrique Lores to cut costs and reverse the decline in the payment company's operations. Since the beginning of last year, PayPal's stock price has fallen by more than 40% cumulatively.
Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick Collison and John Collison, is still an unlisted company and has grown into one of the most sought-after companies in the payments industry. In February of this year, the company obtained a valuation of 159 billion US dollars through employee share sales transactions, up from 106.7 billion US dollars the previous year. Stripe said that while maintaining profits last year, the company continued to increase investment in product development and mergers and acquisitions. As it further expands its cryptocurrency payment business, the company recently acquired the stablecoin orchestration platform Bridge and the crypto wallet service provider Privy.