PayPal, the Silicon Valley digital payments giant is trying to unite with Pinterest, a digital pinboard company that enables e-commerce within its app, in a deal valued at about $45 billion.
PayPal offered $45 billion to pinterest making one share about $70 for Pinterest, a 25% increase from Pinterest’s opening share price on 20th october (Wednesday).
This deal would be the largest in the consumer internet industry ever if completed.
This deal will top the previous deal like Microsoft buying LinkedIn in 2016 for the price of $26 billion and Salesforce buying Slack last year for $27.7 billion.
It would also be among the largest deals for PayPal, which was spun off from eBay in 2015 and has snapped up payments companies globally.
Buying Pinterest would underline PayPal’s interest in moving further into e-commerce. In 2019, PayPal agreed to pay $4 billion for the coupon payment platform Honey, which shows people discounts while they shop online. Through Pinterest’s app, people can save images to digital pinboards and buy goods directly through what are known as “buyable pins.”
PayPal did not respond to a request for comment, and a Pinterest spokeswoman declined to comment. Pinterest’s share price surged 13% on Wednesday after reports of the deal, bringing the company’s valuation to $40 billion.
While PayPal’s shares fell nearly 5 percent; the company has a market capitalization of $303 billion. The talks were reported earlier by Bloomberg.
PayPal recently acquired Paidy, a Japanese provider of installment payment services, and iZettle, a Swedish payment processor.
