NEW YORK—PayPal's board formally rejected a $53 billion offer from Stripe and Advent International to take the company private. The decision, announced July 20, positions PayPal for a potential higher bid or an independent path forward.
The joint offer, made July 15, valued PayPal at $60.50 per share—a 28 percent premium over the stock's pre-announcement price. The bid sought to acquire the digital payments giant outright.
PayPal's board said the $60.50-per-share price did not reflect the company's intrinsic value or future growth prospects. While rejecting the current terms, directors said they remain receptive to an improved offer from the consortium.
The board's position strengthened July 28 when PayPal reported second-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates on both revenue and earnings per share, prompting management to raise full-year guidance.
Those results give PayPal's leadership concrete leverage in any future negotiations—a hard number to argue against when pressing for a higher price.
PayPal's stock has traded around $58.35 a share, having badly trailed the S&P 500 over the past three years. That underperformance fed persistent skepticism about the company's growth trajectory. Management pushed back through aggressive buybacks, signaling conviction in the stock's value even as the market stayed skeptical.
Stripe, a direct payments competitor, and Advent International, a global private equity firm, partnered on the bid. Their joint pursuit reflects the strategic value they see in PayPal's user base and payment infrastructure despite its recent stock weakness.
The rejection puts the decision squarely with Stripe and Advent: raise the offer or walk away. At $58.35, the stock trades below the $60.50 bid price, suggesting the market assigns only partial odds to a deal closing at a higher level. A sweetened bid would need to clear that bar convincingly to win the board over.
