What happened: PayPal stock (PYPL) jumped 28% in pre-market on Wednesday.
What’s behind the move: Payments company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have reportedly made an offer to acquire PayPal at $60.50 per share in a deal that would value the payments giant at more than $53 billion, according to a Reuters report
Citing two people familiar with the matter, the report said that Stripe and Advent would each own a 50% stake in PayPal under the proposed transaction. The offer was reportedly submitted earlier this month and is backed by about $50 billion in committed bank financing. PayPal and Stripe declined to comment to Yahoo Finance about the report.
Yahoo Finance also reached out to Advent for comment, but had not heard back at the time of this publication. What else you need to know: PayPal shares are down 18% year-to-date and 35% lower than one year ago as fierce competition from competitors like Apple Pay, Block (XYZ), Stripe, and buy-now-pay-later companies Affirm (AFRM) and Klarna has crowded the market. The stock has been unable to reclaim its 2021 all-time high of $310, set at the height of the pandemic amid a low-interest-rate environment.