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Rumor mill: Stripe and the private equity firm Advent International have offered $60.50 a share for PayPal, a bid that values the veteran payments company at more than $53 billion and, if accepted, would fuse the two most widely used payment platforms for online merchants into a single operator handling roughly $3.7 trillion in payments each year. The offer was submitted earlier this month and carries about $50 billion in committed financing from banks, according to two people familiar with the matter, one of whom described the financing package.
The structure is what makes the offer unusual. Rather than carve up PayPal and sell off the parts, Stripe and Advent want to hold the company together, splitting ownership evenly between them, the people said.
Stripe has built its business almost entirely around merchants, supplying the software that lets companies accept card payments, sending payouts, and automating their finances. It has comparatively little contact with the shoppers on the other side of those transactions. PayPal is the mirror image. It brings more than 430 million consumer accounts and direct payment and banking relationships with the people spending the money.
