Talks to sell PayPal to Stripe and Advent are heating up

In Brief

PayPal CEO Enrique Lores’ turnaround program for the fintech institution could see a merchantability — of itself.

The imaginable archetypal popped successful July erstwhile Stripe and backstage equity elephantine Advent offered to buy PayPal for $60.50 a stock successful a woody that would person valued it astatine $53 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported astatine the time.

PayPal balked. But apparently, negotiations ne'er stopped and a woody could travel unneurotic successful the coming weeks, according to new reporting by the WSJ, which cited unnamed sources.

PayPal declined to remark connected the report. A Stripe spokesperson said the institution doesn’t “comment connected rumors oregon speculation.”

The negotiations are taking spot arsenic Lores attempts to prevention the institution from its lagging trajectory.

Lores joined PayPal successful March, aft spending years astatine HP. In April, Lores made the archetypal moves successful his turnaround plan, including an enforcement shuffle and splitting the concern into 3 operating models: checkout solutions and PayPal, user fiscal services (and Venmo), and outgo services and crypto. A period later, Lores told investors that PayPal would recommit to the fundamentals,” which included “becoming a exertion institution again.”

PayPal’s turnaround volition besides see a cost-saving plans, which is expected to trim its workforce by 20% over the adjacent 2 to 3 years.

PayPal was founded successful 1998 by a fig of men who went connected to beryllium Silicon Valley luminaries, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, Luke Nosek, and others. The institution has struggled successful caller years, aft ballooning during the pandemic due to an e-commerce boom.

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