Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have offered to buy PayPal for 60.50 dollars per share, valuing the payments company at more than 53 billion dollars. Reuters broke the story on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. PayPal shares jumped about 19 percent on the news and now trade near 57 dollars. The market took notice fast.
The offer lands roughly 28 percent above Tuesday's closing price and comes with about 50 billion dollars in committed bank financing. Stripe and Advent would hold equal stakes and keep the company in one piece rather than break it up. The two suitors first approached PayPal in early April and want to move talks forward in the coming weeks. All three companies declined to comment, and there is no certainty the approach ends in a deal.
The bid arrives after years of decline for a former market darling. PayPal was valued near 360 billion dollars at its 2021 peak, then lost most of that as growth slowed and rivals from Apple to Stripe itself ate into its position. The fall was brutal. A buyout at 53 billion dollars would hand the buyers a franchise for a fraction of what investors once paid for the same business.
The timing lines up with a shift MCO flagged in its own work. As MCO noted on July 16, 2026, the recovery from the February low still counts as three swings, and a durable bottom needs a full five-part advance. The support zone MCO watches sits between 47.65 and 52.50 dollars, the invalidation for the bigger turnaround lies near 30 dollars, and the next resistance band runs from 60.40 to 78.14 dollars. The offer price of 60.50 dollars lands almost exactly on the lower edge of that resistance zone.
MCO's valuation work points the same direction. The stock trades around 10.5 times earnings against a historical average multiple of 29, earnings per share more than tripled from 1.50 dollars in 2016 to 5.30 dollars last year, and MCO's conservative fair value sits at 79.80 dollars, about 32 percent above the offer. Seen through that lens, the 28 percent premium rewards a depressed share price, not the underlying business. MCO had argued the stock only needed a trigger. This bid may be it.
For shareholders the question now shifts from whether PayPal is cheap to who captures the discount. A board that believes in numbers like MCO's fair value has room to demand more, while a rejection would leave the stock to prove the turnaround on its own. Watch whether PayPal's board engages in the coming weeks and whether the 47.65 to 52.50 dollar support zone holds if deal hopes wobble.