Advent, Stripe Abandon $50 Billion Pursuit of PayPal

The blockbuster PayPal buyout could be off. Advent International and Stripe have reportedly walked away from their pursuit of the payments pioneer, ending months of speculation over a deal that would have ranked among the largest leveraged buyouts ever. PayPal shares tumbled as much as 16% in premarket trading Friday, a sharp reversal for a stock that had climbed for weeks on takeover hopes.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the consortium is no longer pursuing a deal for PayPal. The group had previously offered more than $50 billion for the company, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Representatives for Advent, PayPal and Stripe all declined to comment.

Bloomberg described the scale of what was on the table this way: “A consortium of buyout firm Advent and payment processor Stripe has decided to abandon its pursuit of fintech pioneer PayPal Holdings Inc., a potential deal that would have ranked as one of the biggest-ever leveraged buyouts, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The rest of Bloomberg’s report fills in how PayPal got here. Founded in the late 1990s, PayPal was an early leader in digital payments but has struggled to keep pace as Apple and Alphabet’s Google chip away at its market share. Bloomberg first reported in February that Stripe was weighing a bid for parts or all of PayPal after a stock slump.

Strong second-quarter earnings have since helped shares climb more than 40% this quarter, pushing PayPal’s market value to about $52.6 billion. The company also has a new chief executive, Enrique Lores, who took over in March after PayPal ousted Alex Chriss and who has promised clear financial targets for each business line.

Several outlets reported recently that PayPal saw the opening bid as too low and that the two sides were negotiating a higher price. Bloomberg noted the buyers could still return if circumstances change. Stripe, meanwhile, is pushing further into AI infrastructure and agreed this month to buy OpenRouter, a marketplace that gives businesses access to hundreds of AI models.

PYMNTS has tracked this story closely. It reported when Stripe and Advent made their $53 billion play for PayPal, and later when PayPal’s board called that bid inadequate. It also covered PayPal naming Enrique Lores as CEO and his early moves to reset the company’s finances. On the Stripe side, PYMNTS looked at how the OpenRouter deal fits into the company’s push beyond traditional payments.