PayPal is not currently considering buying Pinterest, a digital payment company said Monday, after several media outlets reported last week that it was in talks to buy a digital pinboard site for $ 45 billion.
The latest news is a blow to Pinterest, which is currently struggling with the loss of its founder, Evan Sharp, and the slowdown in user growth, which has hampered its future.
Pinterest shareholders ’acquisition of a portion of the payment giant, PayPal’s access to a huge user base, has now disappeared.
PayPal shares rose 4 percent in trading on Monday afternoon, while Pinterest fell nearly 13 percent.
PayPal did not provide further details in its one-line statement. Both companies did not respond to other requests for comment.
Acesparks and other media reported on the deal last week. At the time, sources told Acesparks that PayPal had offered Pinterest $ 70 per share.
Shares of PayPal helped increase digital payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, up more than 35 percent in the past 12 months, bringing the market capitalization to nearly $ 320 billion before the report on negotiations with Pinterest.
However, since then, PayPal shares have lost 12 percent of their value, experts and analysts have blamed investors ’poor reception for the breach of negotiations, while others have noted difficulties in integrating Pinterest into PayPal.
“Buying Pinterest poses a huge integration risk, especially in terms of culture and performance, as launching a platform primarily aimed at engaging users and engaging in advertising requires the use of muscles that are not accustomed to using PayPal,” he said. Tien-tsin Huang, JP Morgan Payments Analyst, in a note to customers.
Sharp co-founded an online album and photo sharing platform in 2010 with company CEO Ben Silberman and Paul Schiarra, who left in 2012.
In early October, Sharp said he was stepping down as chief creative director to join LoveFrom, a company led by many Apple product maker Johnny Ive.
As blockchains eased around the world, Pinterest has warned of slowing user growth, especially in the United States, which makes up the bulk of its user base. Pinterest said it expects growth primarily by interacting more deeply with existing users rather than with new users.
In the June quarter, Pinterest’s monthly active users (MAUs), a widely viewed figure, rose 45 percent to 454 million, up just 9 percent from the previous quarter.
The Pinterest deal would be the company’s largest acquisition at the reporting price of the social network, surpassing Microsoft’s 2016 acquisition of LinkedIn for $ 26.2 billion.
This would also allow PayPal to drive the growth of e-commerce, as buyers are increasingly buying the products they see on social media, often on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and even Pinterest. observe the ‘secret conductors’.
PayPal, one of the biggest winners of the pandemic, bought Japan’s Paidy earlier this year for $ 2.7 billion.
He also bought Happy Returns, a company that helps online shoppers return unwanted merchandise, based on boosting e-commerce offers in May and buying Honey Science, a $ 4 billion online coupon finder.
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