Talks to sell PayPal to Stripe and Advent are heating up

PayPal CEO Enrique Lores’ turnaround plan for the fintech company could include a sale — of itself.

The prospect first popped in July when Stripe and private equity giant Advent offered to buy PayPal for $60.50 a share in a deal that would have valued it at $53 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

PayPal balked. But apparently, negotiations never stopped and a deal could come together in the coming weeks, according to new reporting by the WSJ, which cited unnamed sources.

PayPal declined to comment on the report. A Stripe spokesperson said the company doesn’t “comment on rumors or speculation.”

The negotiations are taking place as Lores attempts to save the company from its lagging trajectory.

Lores joined PayPal in March, after spending years at HP. In April, Lores made the first moves in his turnaround plan, including an executive shuffle and splitting the business into three operating models: checkout solutions and PayPal, consumer financial services (and Venmo), and payment services and crypto. A month later, Lores told investors that PayPal would recommit to the fundamentals,” which included “becoming a technology company again.”

PayPal’s turnaround will also include a cost-saving plans, which is expected to reduce its workforce by 20% over the next two to three years.

PayPal was founded in 1998 by a number of men who went on to be Silicon Valley luminaries, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, Luke Nosek, and others. The company has struggled in recent years, after ballooning during the pandemic due to an e-commerce boom.