PayPal, one of the biggest online payment platforms, is reportedly in talks to acquire the image-sharing app Pinterest for $45 billion. The report comes from a Bloomberg article citing sources that requested to stay anonymous.
If the talk between the two companies is successful, then this would mark the biggest social media acquisition in history. This title is currently held by LinkedIn, which was sold to Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016.
Bloomberg’s sources with knowledge on the matter said that PayPal is offering $70 per share for acquiring Pinterest, mostly in stock. If all goes according to plan, then the deal should be announced in early November, right when PayPal is supposed to report its quarterly earnings.
However, it is still unclear whether the deal will be successful and the terms of the deal could change as well. As soon as the news broke cover, PayPal’s shares dropped, but Pinterest’s shares saw a huge surge.
Following the acquisition of Pinterest, PayPal will be able to capture more of the e-commerce market where a lot of the online shoppers follow influencers on different platforms. It should help PayPal diversify its sources of income with advertising revenue.
When Pinterest went public in 2019 it was valued at around $13 billion, but it saw significant growth during the pandemic as more people started using online platforms to kill time.
