Washington: Shares in PayPal surged as much as 13 percent on Wall Street Wednesday after reports that payments firm Stripe and private equity group Advent International had made a joint offer to buy the digital payments pioneer.
US media said the deal would value PayPal at about $53 billion, with the offer of $60.50 a share -- a premium of some 28 percent over Tuesday's closing price -- made this month.
The offer nevertheless comes in far below where PayPal traded just a year ago, after a bruising 12 months for the stock.
The deal would still rank among the largest fintech acquisitions ever, uniting Stripe's payments infrastructure -- widely used by online businesses -- with PayPal's massive consumer and merchant base.
Stripe, founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, is one of Silicon Valley's most valuable private companies, most recently valued at around $159 billion.
The Collisons, who run Stripe as chief executive and president, have long resisted taking the company public.
PayPal was founded in the late 1990s, with billionaire investor Peter Thiel among its co-founders and Elon Musk joining through a merger with his startup X.com.
The company's early executives became known in Silicon Valley as the "PayPal mafia," a group of alumni who went on to found or lead companies including Tesla, SpaceX, LinkedIn, YouTube and Palantir.
But PayPal has struggled in recent years to keep pace with rivals including Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Its market value peaked near $360 billion in 2021 before collapsing, and the company issued disappointing profit guidance for 2026 at the start of the year.
