Stripe, Advent Offer to Buy PayPal For More Than $53 Billion

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have reportedly made a joint $60.50-per-share offer to buy PayPal, valuing the payments company at more than $53 billion. The bid is said to represent a 28% premium to PayPal's latest closing price and is backed by roughly $50 billion in committed bank financing.

private equity firm

[Anonymous Coward]

You thought PayPal was shitty now? Come back in one year.

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[awwshit]

Paypal has been clueless for a while, gave up on them years ago.

I'd guess that you are correct, PE will make everything worse. Maybe it is the push off the cliff that Paypal needs.

Re:private equity firm

[tlhIngan]

Maybe it is the push off the cliff that Paypal needs.

Not likely. Because PayPal still does one thing no one else does - which is allow two random people to accept credit card as a payment option. In other words, the recipient does not need to have a merchant account.

While PayPal does more than this nowadays, that is still one thing that no other system does. There are alternative systems but they generally are very limited (I think Visa has one that allows random people to take Visa payment).

Sure there are private networks that do the same thing if people are both members of it, but you'll find they're US only and generally hijack through a bank account to get the transfers done. But if you just wanted to do a random payment not using cash, PayPal is surprisingly your only option.

All other options require both sides to have an account - PayPal only requires the recipient to have an account - the sender being charged does not need one.

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[awwshit]

The PE playbook seems to strapping the company with debt and cutting everything to pay for it. Don't expect everything to stay the same.

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[phantomfive]

Doesn't Venmo do that?

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[RitchCraft]

Yep, was here to comment the same thing. When private equity gets involved enshitification is not far behind. But then again, this is PayPal, so who cares?

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[anoncoward69]

Paypal still has it's uses. I use it all the time to pay for shit on ebay. And if i'm buying something online from an infrequently used or small time retailer if they have the option to use paypal at checkout, id much rather do that then put my credit card into yet another retailer's website that might get breached at some point.

Re: private equity firm

[devslash0]

From PayPal to PayZilla

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[omnichad]

Hard to really argue which is worse, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Yes, please!

[pr0t0]

My past dealings (mine and others) have lead me to think of PayPal as a criminal enterprise, and I've never had anything but great experiences working with Stripe. YMMV. I'm not normally in favor of consolidation when it removes consumer choice, but this one is an enthusiast "YES" from me.

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[SaltyDog00]

I feel you on this, especially when it comes to consumer choice. PayPal is almost like a monopoly, since it's the only payment option on some sites, which has earned it a spot on my personal list of "evil, manipulative" companies. So, on one hand, I'm happy to see PayPal go. On the other hand, I'm worried my pessimistic side will just transfer that same dislike to Stripe.

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[haruchai]

"think of PayPal as a criminal enterprise"
Musk & Thiel, nuff said

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[spacepimp]

They (Thiel and Musk) haven't had any involvement in PayPal for 24 years. Currently there are parties to assign blame and concerns to that make sense. Besides being owned by Ebay then spun off there has been eight presidents of the company. What in your opinion do Thiel and Musk do at PayPal for the last 24 years?

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[haruchai]

I can't say for certain but given what far too many of the ambitious wealthy have been known to get up to, i'd be shocked that they, especially Thiel, don't have both interest and input.
as for possible links consider that the 2 largest institutional shareholders in PayPal are Vanguard & Blackrock.
Vanguard is almost the largest holder of Palantir & Thiel's spouse is a former Blackrock VP . While that was also a long time ago, i think it's naive to think that neither he nor Thiel have any influence

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[ArchieBunker]

Don't forget what Elon Musk looked like in 1999 before all his gender affirming care. https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

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[SumDog]

Stripe has censored people in the past, just like every other payment provider. I once interviewed at Braintree (Paypay/Venmo) but didn't get the position. I've never had Venmo and I deleted my Paypal in 2022:

https://battlepenguin.com/poli... [battlepenguin.com]

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[cayenne8]

My past dealings (mine and others) have lead me to think of PayPal as a criminal enterprise,

I've seen a lot of hate thrown at PayPal over the years.....and not quite sure why?

I've used it a LONG time for eBay payments, sending money to friends and the odd small merchant.

I wouldn't say I've used it a TON, but some.....and never had any problems.

What problems have ya'll had that you dislike them so badly? Genuinely curious....

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[Fly Swatter]

I think the hate stems from the seller side of the transaction. As a user I also never had a problem and continue to use it to protect having to give out any payment info direct to fly-by-night sellers.

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[Tailhook]

Based on what you've written, your PayPal experience is largely as a payor, and not a payee. That's certainly the most common case.

The other side of the transaction is very different. PayPal is heavily biased toward the former. That's a problem, because PayPal is quite unforgiving for payees. A big part of the problem is that payees are often ignorant, reckless or outright criminal, and their heads are often filled with small-business-person shit. People think they're clever or take things for grante

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[Local ID10T]

Bluntly, PayPal steals money from people.

They freeze accounts: having taken the money from the buyer they refuse to release the money to the seller even though the product was received. They blame it on "irregularities", "potential violations", and "suspicious activity", while refusing to communicate specifics to the seller -they only send a form letter notifying you that your account is frozen. They count on sellers to not pursue arbitration over small amounts of money -and the fact that (when they were

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[Powercntrl]

Your UID is too low to not be aware that mergers and acquisitions always end in enshittification.
 

Nothing ever gets better

[MpVpRb]

...when companies are acquired.
Paypal sucked before, expect it to get worse.

Makes sense

[CEC-P]

They've both tried to censor, fine, and ban customers based on political speech that they didn't like so that makes sense that they'd work together well. I have a different recommendation though. Both of them get barred from operating in the US, lose their business licenses completely, have their assets sold to a non-profit holding company, and put all the management in jail.

But...

[LordHighExecutioner]

...do they pay 53 billions with PayPal ?!?

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[fropenn]

..do they pay 53 billions with PayPal ?!?

Yes, but after fees and additional charges the deal ends up only being worth $49.95.

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[ArghBlarg]

No no, Paypal will freeze the payment, citing it as 'suspicious'. They hold onto the cash, and the acquisition can't go through :)

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[awwshit]

Then you also get an email letting you know that you no longer need to login to PayPal, because browser fingerprints are as good as a password!

You like having some security over your financial information? PayPal doesn't think you need that, just browse and spend without friction!

That's like 10 years of net income

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's typical to overvalue since the assumption is "well go in and fire everyone and double earnings" making it only a 5 year payback, but we'll see what actually happens.

Who needs PayPal these days?

[devslash0]

Yes, PayPal was really helpful as a way to proxy payments and hide your bank details over the last 2 decades to get payment protection if you didn't have a credit card (or even with one) but those days are gone. Google Pay is everywhere these days and does things better, with virtual cards and all, and quicker.

I feel like Musk knows that and will take them up on the offer, and then call them suckers to their back.

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[Red_Chaos1]

Except Google Pay killed personal payments quite a while ago, which was what I used it for to try to get away from PayPal to begin with.

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[omnichad]

They went from "the payment method for eBay" to "a virtual credit card with extra protection" and they really don't have a proper place anymore. But you forgot that they own Venmo. That is a better bank to bank transfer experience than PayPal ever was, and in the US Zelle is really the only other option. At least as far as options with no fees to the consumer.

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[anoncoward69]

I'm pretty sure Musk hasn't had diddly squat to do with PayPal since he sold his stake in it over 20 years ago, other than buying the x.com domain off them.

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[anoncoward69]

MDS runs just about as hard as TDS.

Paypal needs higher fees

[jsepeta]

that's what's missing from their business offerings

Private_Equity + Paypal == Cancel_Account

[hwstar]

You could smell the foul stench a month ago when they changed the terms of their arbitration clause to use JAMS instead of the AAA among other things.

Once a business starts engineering its arbitration agreements to favor it over its customers in most cases, its time to cancel.

I think companies which use arbitration agreements should be avoided if at all possible, but it is getting very difficult to do so.

Being owned by Private Equity is another reason to sever the relationship.

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[anoncoward69]

LOL what company doesn't have arbitration clauses? It's almost a 100% certainly if you've clicked agree on a click though EULA there is 100% an arbitration clause somewhere in there.