PayPal is in Talks to Buy Pinterest in $45 Billion

PayPal is in talks to buy social media company Pinterest. Shares of Pinterest rose on Wednesday after it was publicly announced that PayPal might acquire a social media company. The company’s shares were suspended twice before closing more than 12%. Meanwhile, PayPal closed at almost 5%.

PayPal reportedly considered buying the company at a potential share price of about $70, putting Pinterest at $39 billion. Shares of Pinterest closed at $55.58 a share on Tuesday. PayPal and Pinterest have so far refrained from making official announcements.

Suppose negotiations between online payment company PayPal and social media giant Pinterest took place, and PayPal buys it for $45 billion. In that case, it would be one of the largest corporate deals of the year. The rise in Pinterest stock prices has given Pinterest more than $40 billion in market capitalization.

PayPal recently acquired Paidy, a Japanese company, for $2.7 billion. It seeks to switch to a popular financial service that allows users to share expenses over some time without paying interest. The company is using its firm stock price. The price has risen more than 150 per cent since the end of March 2020. PayPal wants to push its acquisition strategy into an app like Chinese WeChat. The app acts as a social media platform and offers payments.

In July, PayPal President Dan Schulman announced a perfect consumer wallet launch in the US with cryptocurrency, savings, e-commerce and messaging capabilities. In addition, the company is in the early stages of building a stock trading platform.

Pinterest currently has over 450 million users who can post pictures of their interests and send messages. The company has new trading tools for the pursuit of e-commerce.

Conclusion

Information about the talks came a week after Pinterest co-founder, and designer Evan Sharp announced his resignation. At the same time, the company is now under fire from former employees, including allegations of gender discrimination.

According to the Financial Times, there were deals between Pinterest and Microsoft earlier this year, but no negotiations.

It is worth noting that PayPal has benefited from the onset of the coronavirus pandemic due to the online store boom. The potential acquisition of Pinterest could significantly expand the company into a social marketer that other tech giants are already working on.

We will find out very soon whether the deal will be successful and whether PayPal will acquire one of the most popular social networks.