Payments company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal Holdings for about $53 billion, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday. The bid values PayPal at $60.5 per share, a 28% premium over its Tuesday closing price. The offer includes roughly $50 billion in committed financing.
A second attempt
This is not Stripe's first approach to PayPal. In February, Bloomberg reported that Stripe held early-stage acquisition talks with PayPal, which has been losing ground to smartphone-based payment services like Google Pay and Apple Pay. Both PayPal and Stripe declined to comment on the latest offer.
PayPal's stock jumped 11.3% to $52.73 in premarket trading on Wednesday following the news. The shares have gained 14% over the past month but remain down 35% over the past year.
Stablecoin ambitions
Both companies have deepened their involvement in crypto and stablecoins. PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin in 2023, which reached a peak market cap of $4.2 billion in February 2026 before falling to about $2.85 billion. PYUSD is among the ten largest stablecoins but is far smaller than market leaders Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC.
Stripe has offered stablecoin-based accounts globally since May 2025. Its stablecoin infrastructure platform Bridge received conditional approval to operate as a federally chartered national trust bank under the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on February 17. In March, Visa announced it would expand its stablecoin card partnership with Stripe-owned Bridge to over 100 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East by the end of the year.