Stripe and Advent Capital plan to jointly acquire Pay Pal for US$53 billion, the payment industry structure may usher in huge changes
Stripe has teamed up with private equity investment firm Advent International to submit a joint acquisition offer for electronic payments pioneer PayPal. The offer price is US$60.50 per share, and the overall valuation of PayPal exceeds US$53 billion (approximately 384 billion yuan). Once this potentially huge deal is completed, it will become one of the largest mergers and acquisitions in the global financial technology field in recent years. The two giants plan to "equally split" PayPal with a 28% premium to lock in 50 billion in financing According to people familiar with the matter, the above-mentioned acquisition proposal was formally submitted earlier this month and has received approximately US$50 billion in committed financing support from banks. This offer is a discount to PayPal's closing price on Tuesday, representing a premium of approximately 28%. According to the acquisition plan, Stripe and Advent Capital will each hold 50% of PayPal's shares for joint control after the transaction is completed. The parties intend to keep PayPal's business intact rather than break it up or reorganize it. After the news was exposed, both PayPal and Stripe officials maintained restraint on market rumors. A PayPal spokesperson said in an interview that it "has no comment at this time," and Stripe also declined to comment. Contact began in April and the buyer is actively driving negotiations It is reported that this is not the first time that Stripe has expressed interest in acquiring PayPal. As early as early April this year, Stripe and Advent Capital had preliminary contact with PayPal. Sources pointed out that as of now, the bidder has not received a formal reply from PayPal, but Stripe and Advent Capital are actively preparing and plan to vigorously promote substantive negotiations between the two parties in the next few weeks. As the acquisition bid remains confidential, there is still uncertainty as to whether the final transaction will be concluded. Traditional giants are no longer in glory, and they are suddenly "hunted" during the period of cost reduction and transformation. As a pioneer in the digital payment industry, PayPal's market performance in recent years has been unsatisfactory. Its market value reached a peak of US$36 billion in 2021, but has fluctuated downwards since then. This year it once fell to a bottom of about US$3.6 billion, and its market value has shrunk by more than 40% in the past 12 months. (Apple), As technology giants such as Alphabet (Alphabet) encroach on the payment field, PayPal is in a painful defensive and transformation stage: Organizational structure reorganization: In April this year, PayPal just announced that it would reorganize its business into three major segments: checkout, consumer financial services (Venmo), and payment and cryptocurrency, and made a series of personnel adjustments. Pressure to reduce costs and increase efficiency: Under the leadership of new CEO Enrique Lores, PayPal plans to lay off about 20% of its employees in the next two to three years and is trying to achieve $1.5 billion in cost reductions by introducing technologies such as artificial intelligence. Industry analysts point out that although PayPal is mired in valuation quagmire, it still has a huge user base and deep payment foundation. As an unlisted financial technology giant, Stripe's advantage lies in its highly developed merchant infrastructure. If this acquisition is ultimately successful, the complementary combination of the two will completely reshape the competitive landscape of the global digital payment and financial technology market.