Stripe and Advent Offer Over $53 Billion to Acquire PayPal in Joint Bid

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have offered $60.50 per share for PayPal, valuing the company at more than $53 billion, according to Reuters citing people familiar with the matter.

If accepted, the deal would merge two of the most popular online payment platforms into a single company, handling approximately $3.7 trillion in payments annually. The offer was made earlier this month and is backed by about $50 billion in committed financing from banks. PayPal has not yet responded.

The bid follows an earlier proposal in April. Stripe and Advent aim to advance the discussion in the coming weeks.

What Makes Stripe $53 Billion Offer Unusual and Why PayPal’s Consumer Side Matters

Rather than breaking up PayPal and selling off its parts, Stripe and Advent prefer to keep the company intact, splitting ownership evenly between them, according to people familiar with the situation.

The structure reflects the complementary nature of the two businesses: Stripe has built its operations mostly around merchants, offering software that enables companies to accept card payments, send payouts, and automate finances.

It has limited direct contact with shoppers on the consumer side. PayPal, on the other hand, has more than 430 million consumer accounts and maintains direct payment and banking relationships with the people spending the money.

Owning both ends of the transaction chain would allow Stripe to route more activity through infrastructure it controls. This could reduce its reliance on processors like Visa and Mastercard, as every card transaction processed through these networks incurs fees. Keeping more payments within a combined Stripe-PayPal system could help the company avoid some of those charges and increase revenue per transaction.

The consumer side of PayPal is seen as the main attraction. TD Cowen analyst Bryan Bergin told Reuters that PayPal's consumer products "could be attractive to materially accelerate" Stripe's development of a digital…