The PayPal Stripe takeover bid may not be dead, but PayPal’s chief executive made clear on Tuesday that the current price is not the right one. Speaking on the company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call, CEO Enrique Lores declined to slam the door on a deal, but his language pointed unmistakably toward a higher number.
‘If we see levers or a path that we believe would create superior value for our shareholders than executing our current strategy, we would, of course, carefully consider them,’ Lores told investors.
The statement followed a Reuters report that Stripe and private equity firm Advent International had approached PayPal with an offer worth $60.50 per share, valuing the company at $53.4 billion. Lores did not address that offer directly, saying PayPal does not comment on potential mergers or market speculation. The implication, though, was legible enough.
The PayPal Stripe Takeover Bid and the Price Gap
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Ramsey El-Assal, who participated in the Q2 2026 earnings call, had already put a number on the gap. His sum-of-the-parts analysis, which modelled earnings contributions from Venmo, Branded, Unbranded/Braintree, and other peer-to-peer segments, suggested $70 per share would better reflect PayPal’s value, according to TipRanks/TheFly. El-Assal’s analysis also flagged potential downstream effects on processing rivals Global Payments and Fiserv if the transaction were to proceed, as Yahoo Finance reported.
El-Assal characterised the $60.50 offer as likely an opening position rather than a final proposal. On 3 August 2026, Cantor raised its formal price target on PayPal to $60.00 per share, according to MarketBeat. PayPal’s shares were trading around $58 at the time of the earnings call, meaning the Stripe bid offered only a modest premium to market, while the analyst’s sum-of-the-parts figure sat comfortably above both.
The company’s earnings gave PayPal’s board additional standing to hold firm. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.38, ahead of the $1.28 consensus estimate. Revenue rose 5% year-over-year to $8.68 billion, beating expectations of $8.47 billion. Adjusted free cash flow was $1.8 billion for the quarter.
The GAAP picture was more mixed. According to the PayPal Q2 2026 earnings release, GAAP net income fell 11% year-over-year to $1.219 billion, and GAAP operating income dropped 8% to $1.507 billion, with operating margin compressing to 17.4% from 19.8% in the prior-year period. GAAP free cash flow was $1.775 billion. Transaction margin dollars, excluding interest on customer balances, grew 3% year-over-year to $3.619 billion.
PayPal raised its full-year 2026 guidance on both transaction margin dollars and non-GAAP earnings per share following the results. Full-year non-GAAP EPS guidance stands at $5.38 at the midpoint, beating analyst consensus estimates by 1.3%, with the company’s market capitalisation at approximately $49.46 billion at the time of reporting, per StockStory.
A Turnaround Story That Complicates the Maths
Lores joined as President and CEO on 1 March 2026, replacing Alex Chriss, who resigned on 2 February 2026. His first structural move came on 29 April 2026, when PayPal announced a reorganisation into three business units: Checkout Solutions and PayPal; Consumer Financial Services and Venmo; and Payment Services and Crypto. The third division brings together Braintree, SMB processing, value-added services, and crypto, including the stablecoin PYUSD, into a single scalable unit. Consumer Financial Services and Venmo carries a mandate to broaden Venmo into a fuller consumer financial services platform.
The transition was formalised via an SEC 8-K filing that set out the terms of Lores’s appointment alongside the restructuring details.
On the earnings call, Lores said PayPal is ‘making good progress’ on its plan to deliver at least $1.5 billion in gross run-rate savings over the next two to three years, driven by AI adoption across coding, customer service, support operations, and risk management. The company is also removing three organisational layers, migrating from its data centres to the cloud, and building a more modular technology architecture.
‘We believe that executing the transformation strategy I have outlined will create significant value for shareholders. That remains our focus,’ Lores said. ‘While there is still significant work ahead. I have strong conviction in our direction and in our ability to execute.’
For Stripe and Advent, that conviction has a price. The PayPal Stripe takeover bid, if it is to progress, will need to close the gap between $60.50 and the $70 figure that one analyst believes the business is worth. The next move belongs to the acquirers.
