Two weeks after reviving negotiations that ended when PayPal rejected a $53 billion offer, Stripe and its private-equity partner are walking away from what could have been a record fintech acquisition.
A consortium led by the payment platform Stripe and the private-equity firm Advent International has abandoned its pursuit of PayPal, ending a second round of takeover talks that could have resulted in one of the largest buyouts in financial technology history.
Bloomberg first reported the deal’s collapse. The news broke just two weeks after the parties rekindled negotiations that ended in July when PayPal dismissed a buyout proposal that one analyst described as “lowball.”
The offer of $60.50 per share valued
The offer of $60.50 per share valued the online payment pioneer at more than $53 billion. The bid represented about a 28 percent premium to PayPal’s stock price at the time, when the company was valued at roughly $40 billion.
At its peak, PayPal had a $360 billion valuation in 2021, when its stock price topped $300 a share.
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PayPal’s board ultimately decided that Stripe’s cash offer was inadequate, bringing negotiations to an end. But after a nearly month-long hiatus, the talks resumed in mid-August.
The consortium and PayPal ultimately did not see
“The consortium and PayPal ultimately did not see eye-to-eye on the value of the business,” Troy Hooper, co-head of ECM US at Mergermarket, told Reuters. “Add to that the regulatory challenges that a transaction of this size would likely face, and it appears Stripe may have decided the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.”
PayPal,Stripe, and Advent have yet to comment on the failed deal, which would have given the two buyers an equal stake in the combined company.
Source: www.inc.com
