[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] American payment service company PayPal is reportedly pursuing the acquisition of the photo-sharing social media (SNS) platform Pinterest.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 20th (local time), PayPal recently expressed its intention to acquire Pinterest. The acquisition price is reportedly being discussed at around $70 per share. This price represents about a 26% premium over Pinterest's closing stock price of $55.58 on the 19th (local time), and at $70 per share, Pinterest's enterprise value would reach a total of $45 billion (approximately 52.9 trillion KRW). This would be the largest deal in PayPal's history.
However, the terms of the deal remain fluid, and there is a possibility that negotiations may fall through.
WSJ analyzed, "If this deal is finalized, PayPal's business will expand into new areas."
Although Pinterest is an SNS platform, it expanded into the shopping sector through a partnership with the online e-commerce company Shopify in 2020. Because of this, if PayPal acquires Pinterest, it is expected to absorb both Pinterest and Shopify users, encouraging them to use PayPal for online payments.
PayPal, which provides mobile-based simple payment and remittance services, benefited from the online shopping boom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since early last year, the company's stock price has more than doubled, resulting in PayPal securing the liquidity needed for acquisitions, according to Bloomberg.
PayPal has also demonstrated strong appetite for acquisitions, having acquired the European small business commerce platform iZettle in 2018, and the price comparison application Honey Science for $4 billion (approximately 4.7 trillion KRW) the following year. Last month, it acquired the Japanese buy-now-pay-later service Paidy for about 3 trillion KRW.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
