PayPal takeover bid: Stripe and Advent offer $53bn

Somebody has offered to buy PayPal. On 15 July, Stripe — the payments company that sits behind the checkout on a lot of the internet — and Advent International, a private-equity firm, jointly offered $60.50 a share, valuing PayPal at more than $53 billion. That was about a 28% premium on the previous close, and it came with roughly $50 billion of committed bank financing already lined up. The two would own PayPal 50/50, and say they don't intend to break it up.

PayPal's shares jumped around 17% on the news. Two things to be clear about before anything else: the offer is non-binding (it's a proposal, not a signed deal), and PayPal, Stripe and Advent have all declined to comment — this was reported by Reuters, not announced by the companies.

How it got here

• February 2026 — Stripe first sounds PayPal out about a deal. Nothing comes of it.
• April 2026 — Stripe approaches again.
• 15 July 2026 — the formal, non-binding offer lands: $60.50 a share, more than $53bn, ~$50bn of committed bank financing, Advent and Stripe splitting ownership evenly. PayPal's stock jumps roughly 17%.
• 17 July 2026 — Reuters reports the board's preliminary view: the offer is inadequate. Directors don't think $60.50 reflects what the company would be worth if management finishes the turnaround it's in the middle of.
• 20 July 2026 — the board is scheduled to meet to discuss it.

The board's problem isn't only the price

Price is the headline objection, and it isn't just the board saying so. The investor Michael Burry wrote on his Substack, Cassandra Unchained, that "$60.50 is just too low". Cantor Fitzgerald ran a sum-of-the-parts analysis — valuing each bit of PayPal separately and adding them up — and concluded a raised offer around $70 a share could be justified; notably, the firm still keeps its own rating at Neutral with a $54 target, and reads $60.50 as an opening bid rather than a final one.

But according to Reuters, the directors are weighing two things beyond the number. First, whether the buyers can actually deliver the money — $50bn of committed financing is a strong signal, but committed is not the same as drawn. Second, how competition regulators would look at Stripe, a payments giant, absorbing PayPal, another payments giant — and how many months that review would take.

What changes for you today: nothing

If you use PayPal to pay for things — or to move money into a broker account — nothing changes right now. Anything that follows would need a deal, then shareholder approval, then regulators in several countries.

It's worth knowing what "taken private" would actually mean, though, because that is what's on the table. Today PayPal is listed: anyone can buy the shares, and it publishes detailed results every quarter. Under Stripe and Advent it would be delisted — no public shareholders, no quarterly disclosure, owned by one company and one private-equity firm. Private equity buys businesses largely with borrowed money and then reshapes them to sell on later, and the usual levers are cost and pricing.

PayPal is one of the ways you can top up an account at eToro and other brokers. A change of owner doesn't move a deposit fee by itself.

The part I find more interesting than the price: one of the two buyers isn't an investor at all, it's a competitor. Advent brings the money; Stripe already runs the checkout plumbing that PayPal competes against every day. When a rival buys a rival, overlapping products don't usually both survive — and for anyone actually using PayPal, which of its features quietly gets folded into Stripe's rails is a bigger question than whether the price ends up at $60.50 or $70.

What to watch next

The board meets Monday 20 July. Three outcomes are realistic: it rejects the offer outright, it engages and pushes for a higher number, or it does nothing public while talks continue quietly. Reuters describes the consortium as the most serious bidder so far and still interested — which usually means an improved offer is possible rather than a walk-away.

This is a summary of what has been reported, not investment advice. PayPal, Stripe and Advent have not commented publicly.