Last Updated on August 31, 2026 by TMB
The planned acquisition of PayPal by buyout firm Advent International and payment processor Stripe has officially been scrapped. The deal, which would have been worth $53 billion, was confirmed as cancelled on August 28, 2026.
In light of the news, PayPal shares have fallen by 12%, with rumours swirling about where all three companies will go next. While sources close to the matter have spoken anonymously to the media, no concrete decision has been given regarding the deal falling through.
PayPal’s Status Quo
While we can only speculate, some have suggested that a disagreement about PayPal’s worth is to blame. The $53 billion price tag might be staggering, but the higher-ups at PayPal apparently felt otherwise. During the COVID-19 pandemic, PayPal saw a peak valuation of $360 billion, and the company wanted a higher acquisition price.
On top of this, the acquisition of such a powerful payment processor could have led to regulatory tension, so both Advent and Stripe decided not to move forward.
“PayPal’s management is unlikely to accept a price that is not meaningfully above $70, and it was unclear to us whether Stripe/Advent can even afford a price which is meaningfully above their $60.5 bid,” analysts at Bernstein noted in a recent document.
The two companies first approached PayPal in April 2026 before bringing forward their final deal last month. Had the deal gone through, both would have enjoyed a stake in PayPal, instead of splitting the company in two.
The Worth of a Company
Once again, the company’s impressive pandemic performance has been brought into play. When the world was in lockdown, online shopping saw a massive spike, with PayPal profiting immensely.
But since lockdown ended, more consumers have returned to in-person payment, and the mammoth transaction rates that PayPal reported have faltered. On top of this, Apple and Google are expanding their instant payment options, with a heavy focus on their native applications. This, naturally, meant a massive hit to PayPal’s monopoly and overall worth as a company.
Ironically, PayPal had a per-share price of $61.47 at the end of Thursday’s trading day, leading to a $52.6 billion market value. This reinforced PayPal’s assertion that it was worth more than the consortium was willing to pay.
Moving forward, PayPal might attract another interested buyer who might just pay what it is asking for.
