PayPal shares sink on reports Advent-Stripe consortium walks away from bid

The two had made a $60.50-per-share, or about $53 billion, offer for the payments company that was once seen as the crown jewel of American financial technology, Reuters reported in July, citing sources.

The offer was a fraction of the roughly $360 billion valuation PayPal commanded at the height of the pandemic-era boom in 2021. The company's board considered the initial offer inadequate, sources have said previously.

"The consortium and PayPal ultimately did not see eye-to-eye on the value of the business. Add to that the regulatory challenges that a transaction of this size would likely face, and it appears Stripe may have decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze," said Troy Hooper, co-head of ECM US at Mergermarket.

"Ultimately, valuation and regulatory complexity appear to have been the more important factors."