Pinterest May Soon Be Acquired by PayPal

Fintech company PayPal is reportedly in late-stage discussions to buy Pinterest according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to CNBC. This person asked to remain anonymous because the deal discussions were confidential.

Shares of Pinterest soared Wednesday after Bloomberg first reported the news. The stock saw a gain of over 12% while PayPal shares closed down almost 5%.

PayPal has discussed acquiring the company for a potential price of around $70 a share, which would value Pinterest at about $39 billion, says Bloomberg.

Both companies declined to comment.

Pinterest went public in April 2019 and at the time was valued at more than $10 billion.

If PayPal acquires the company, it would be the biggest acquisition of a social media company, surpassing Microsoft’s $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016.

PayPal has offered $70 per share, mostly in stock, for Pinterest, one of the sources said. The online payments provider hopes to successfully negotiate and announce a deal by the time it reports quarterly earnings on November 8, added the source.

“(The) combination would be a significant positive for PayPal’s ongoing monetization initiatives on both sides of its merchant and consumer platforms, especially if Pinterest’s social commerce platform gets integrated with Honey’s AI into PayPal’s destination app,” Wedbush analysts wrote in a note.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.