Advent and Stripe abandon their $53bn pursuit of PayPal

The consortium of private-equity firm Advent International and Stripe has dropped its pursuit of PayPal, Bloomberg reported on 28 August. The group had offered USD 60.50 a share, valuing PayPal at more than USD 53bn. PayPal's board judged the bid inadequate and pointed to regulatory and financing hurdles, and never formally responded to it.

Block took part in the original April approach but left the group before the formal bid was submitted. PayPal, Stripe and Advent all declined to comment.

The biggest consolidation move hanging over European acceptance this year is off the table. PayPal stays independent, which means its checkout button, its merchant contracts and its Zettle terminal estate stay with a competitor rather than moving inside Stripe's stack, and the two-year antitrust question that a Stripe-PayPal combination would have posed for European e-commerce acceptance disappears with it.

It also leaves PayPal's own turnaround, under a CEO five months into the job, as the only route back to a valuation that was USD 360bn in 2021.

Whether shareholders press the board after two rejected offers, whether Stripe comes back for parts of PayPal rather than the whole company, and what the three-unit reorganisation delivers now that a sale is no longer the exit.

• rte.ie
• Bloomberg, 28 Aug 2026
• Axios, 28 Aug 2026