Stripe, Advent consortium said to drop pursuit of PayPal

A consortium of payment processor Stripe and buyout firm Advent has decided to abandon its pursuit of fintech pioneer PayPal, Bloomberg News has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

PayPal, Stripe and Advent declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

The payments company, once the crown jewel of American financial technology, received a $60.50-per-share bid from Stripe and private equity firm Advent International, which valued it at more than $53 billion, Reuters reported in July, citing sources.

The offer is a fraction of the roughly $360 billion valuation PayPal commanded as a pandemic-era darling in 2021.

PayPal's board saw the takeover bid as inadequate and said it faced regulatory and financing hurdles, Reuters had previously reported. PayPal has not formally responded to the proposal.

Block, Stripe and Advent had first approached PayPal together in April, but Block exited the consortium before Stripe and Advent had submitted their offer.

The consortium's bid came as PayPal, founded in the late 1990s, has struggled in recent years to compete with rivals such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, with management trying to revive its flagging share price amid slowing growth.

After taking over in March from Alex Chriss, PayPal CEO Enrique Lores started a sweeping turnaround exercise to simplify the payments provider and sharpen its focus on growth.

In April, the company split its operations into three units covering checkout, consumer financial services Venmo, and payments and crypto, while making a series of management changes.