Milana Vinn for Reuters, on July 14:

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) for $60.50 per share, in a deal that would value the payments company at more than $53 billion, two people familiar with the matter said.

The offer, submitted earlier this month, is backed by about $50 billion in committed financing from banks, said one of them. The offer represents around a 28% premium to PayPal’s closing share price on Tuesday.

PayPal’s stock price jumped about 20% following the report.

Milana Vinn and Manya Saini for Reuters, two days later:

PayPal’s board sees a $53 billion takeover bid by rival Stripe and private equity firm Advent International as undervaluing the company and facing regulatory and financing hurdles, a person familiar with the matter said, potentially setting the stage for negotiations over the future of the U.S. payments giant.

I remember making an above-asking-price offer on a home a couple of years back. The owners (heirs) countered with an even higher price. Flabbergasted by their greed, we walked away. Three weeks later, they came back to us to accept our original offer. We politely told them to screw off. They eventually accepted an offer well below ours.

I don’t know what made me think of that.

I tried to remember the last time someone offered to “PayPal” (or even “Venmo”) me money—it’s almost all shifted to Apple Pay and Zelle—so imagine my surprise when I logged into PayPal to check and saw $100 in my account, a reimbursement from a friend for dinner and drinks in April.

Prior to that, my only other activity was an August 2025 promotional rebate of $96.68 from CharJenPro; a June 2025 payment of $80 for DASH tickets; and a February 2024 payment of $20 for a Nintendo Switch membership. My point is this: I was completely unaware that PayPal was worth even $53 billion—and certainly not more.