Advent International and Stripe have walked away from their pursuit of PayPal, ending what would have been one of the largest leveraged buyouts on record. The consortium’s initial offer of $60.50 a share in July valued PayPal at over $53 billion with a 28% premium and relied on roughly $50 billion in committed bank financing. However, PayPal’s board deemed the approach inadequate, and negotiations for a higher figure stalled before collapsing.

The subsequent rise in PayPal’s stock—driven by better-than-expected Q2 earnings and takeover interest—pushed its market value to about $52.6 billion, erasing the discount that had made the deal attractive. Assembling $50 billion in debt became increasingly difficult as shares climbed from historic lows near $40 billion. Block had exited the consortium earlier, leaving Stripe and Advent as equal partners after their joint approach began in April, following initial interest dating to February.

Stripe, now valued at around $159 billion, sought to gain Venmo, PayPal’s branded checkout and wallet, and expand into crypto and agentic commerce while reducing reliance on Visa and Mastercard. Despite the failed bid, Stripe continues expanding, recently agreeing to buy Open Router to strengthen its AI infrastructure. PayPal, once worth roughly $360 billion at its 2021 peak, has struggled amid market share losses to Apple and Alphabet, leading to the ousting of CEO Alex Chriss and the appointment of Enrique Lores, who is restructuring the company into three units focused on checkout, Venmo, and payments and crypto.