Advent, Stripe consortium is said to drop pursuit of PayPal, Bloomberg News reports

A consortium of investment firm Advent and payments processor Stripe has dropped its pursuit of PayPal, according to Bloomberg News. The deal would have valued the fintech giant at over $53 billion, but the offer was deemed inadequate by PayPal's board due to regulatory and financing hurdles. The acquisition talks began in April when Block, Stripe and Advent approached PayPal together, but Block later withdrew from the consortium.

After buying PayPal in March, new CEO Enrique Lores has been implementing a turnaround plan to streamline the payments provider and focus on growth. The company recently restructured its operations into three divisions: checkout, Venmo, and payments and crypto, while implementing management changes. PayPal, which once held a high valuation in the pandemic era, has been facing challenges in competing with rivals such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.