Stripe and Advent bid $53 billion for PayPal during Lores turnaround
PayPal's new CEO must weigh a months-old operating reset against a $60.50-a-share bid that directors already view as inadequate.
By Ryan Merket ยท Published
Why it matters
The bid tests whether Lores can turn a barely started restructuring into negotiating leverage while Stripe seeks the consumer network missing from its merchant payments business.
Stripe and Advent International have offered roughly $53 billion for PayPal, forcing Enrique Lores to consider a sale just four and a half months after he took charge of PayPal. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the proposal landed while Lores was reorganizing PayPal and pursuing at least $1.5 billion in cost reductions.
The timing gives Lores an unusually compressed first assignment. He arrived with a mandate to repair a public company whose board had already concluded that its previous pace of change and execution fell short. He now has to compare the uncertain value of that turnaround with a proposal carrying a roughly 30% premium to PayPal's unaffected share price.
Lores, 61, built his career inside one institution before taking responsibility for another. He spent decades at HP and predecessor Hewlett-Packard, eventually leading HP from November 2019 through February 2026. The Journal reported that he played a key role in Hewlett-Packard's 2015 separation into HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
That background explains why PayPal chose Lores. It also makes the takeover proposal an awkward test of the same operating discipline he was hired to impose.
A turnaround measured in months
PayPal announced Lores as CEO in February, with a March 1 start date. He was an informed outsider: Lores had served on PayPal's board since 2021 and chaired it from July 2024 until accepting the CEO job.
The board's announcement was unusually direct about the circumstances. PayPal said progress under former CEO Alex Chriss had failed to meet expectations for speed and execution. Lores arrived with deep knowledge of PayPal's performance gaps rather than the usual grace period afforded a new chief executive.
His first structural move followed on April 29. PayPal reorganized around three operating groups: Checkout Solutions & PayPal, Consumer Financial Services & Venmo, and Payment Services & Crypto. The design put named executives over narrower mandates and grouped Braintree, small-business processing, merchant services and crypto into a single division.
The cost program reported by the Journal added the harder part of the HP playbook: cutting at least $1.5 billion while trying to restore growth.
The Journal said Stripe and Advent made their approach in recent days. The approach became public by July 15, when PayPal shares rose 17%, according to the Journal. The supplied reporting does not establish the private submission date or show that PayPal has accepted the proposal, rejected it or opened a formal sale process.
The opening offer has room to move
The proposal values PayPal at about $53 billion and represents approximately a 30% premium to its recent unaffected trading price.
Reuters reported that PayPal's board views the current $60.50-a-share offer as inadequate and is weighing regulatory and financing risks, but the supplied materials do not establish the bidders' financing package or ownership split.
Any transaction would likely face scrutiny because it would combine two major online-payments businesses. The supplied reporting does not identify the jurisdictions, antitrust theories or potential remedies under consideration.
Venmo supplies the consumer prize
Stripe's core strength lies in merchant payment infrastructure. PayPal would bring consumer accounts, a familiar online checkout brand and Venmo.
The Journal reported that Venmo has 67 million monthly active users and that its revenue rose 20% last year. Its users skew younger and more affluent, giving the bidders access to a large consumer audience alongside PayPal's merchant relationships.
For Stripe, combining merchant infrastructure with PayPal's consumer reach would create a broader network spanning checkout, processing and wallets. Buying PayPal would provide established consumer distribution rather than requiring Stripe to build comparable wallet adoption on its own.
Advent contributes private-equity deal experience. Reuters said the firm has previously invested in payments companies including Worldpay, Vantiv and Nuvei.
Lores still has a case for independence
PayPal's board is weighing the offer against the value Lores could create if the turnaround succeeds. That argument depends on execution that investors have yet to see, partly because Lores has had so little time in the job.
His reorganization was announced in late April. The takeover proposal became public in mid-July.
Lores was hired because he had spent a career simplifying large technology businesses without abandoning their productive assets. A sale would require a judgment on whether $60.50 a share adequately compensates investors for surrendering the turnaround before it has been tested.
PayPal's directors consider the reported offer inadequate, leaving Lores to strengthen the standalone plan while the board assesses the proposal's regulatory and financing risks. The bid may determine whether that plan continues under public ownership at all.