Advent International and Stripe have ended their pursuit of acquiring PayPal in a deal valued at over $50 billion, which would have been one of the largest leveraged buyouts ever. PayPal's shares dropped as much as 16% in premarket trading following the news. The consortium had initially offered more than $50 billion, but negotiations stalled as PayPal considered the bid too low. Despite strong recent earnings and a new CEO aiming to improve financial targets, the deal has been abandoned for now, though the buyers may return if conditions change. Stripe is also focusing on expanding into AI infrastructure, recently acquiring OpenRouter to enhance its business offerings beyond payments.
