PayPal-Stripe/Advent takeover talks advance toward a possible deal, WSJ reports

The Wall Street Journal reported that talks to sell PayPal to Stripe and private-equity firm Advent are heating up, with a deal possibly landing within weeks. The consortium's standing offer is $60.50 a share, valuing PayPal above $53bn, which PayPal's board had earlier deemed inadequate. CEO Enrique Lores is pursuing a turnaround including a planned 20% workforce cut.

A Stripe-PayPal combination would join two of the largest online-payment franchises and reshape European e-commerce acceptance, where both are heavyweights; it would also face significant EU antitrust scrutiny. This advances the thread the corpus logged at HIGH when the board first rejected the bid.

Whether a definitive agreement is signed in the coming weeks, the final price versus the $60.50 offer, and early signals on EU and US antitrust posture toward the tie-up.

• techcrunch.com