PayPal (PYPL) stock rose more than 4% on Tuesday after the payments giant defended its multiyear turnaround plan without completely closing the door to a potential merger.
“While there is still significant work ahead, I have strong conviction in our direction and in our ability to execute,” PayPal president and CEO Enrique Lores said.
“At the same time, we remain open and objective in evaluating opportunities,” he added. “If we see levers or a path that we believe would create superior value for our shareholders that execute in our current strategy, we would, of course, carefully consider them.”
Earlier this year, Stripe and private equity firm Advent offered to acquire PayPal for around $60 per share, according to a report from Reuters earlier this month. The news sent PayPal’s stock surging.
“For now, while we remain open, our focus is on executing our own strategic plan,” Lores added.
PayPal stock climbed above $58 per share on Tuesday. It’s down 1% for the year and 80% below its all-time high set in 2021 during the pandemic-driven surge in e-commerce.
The company reported some early signs of progress on Tuesday as M&A questions still linger. Paypal posted second quarter diluted earnings per share of $1.38. Payments volume rose 10% to $486.4 billion. Both figures exceeded analyst forecasts. It also raised its full-year adjusted earnings outlook.
An early pioneer of digital payments, PayPal has lost ground in online commerce to larger rivals like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and upstarts like Stripe.
Lores, a longtime board member, officially took over as CEO in March after former CEO Alex Chriss stepped down in January. In April, Lores reorganized the company’s businesses into three separate units: checkout solutions and PayPal, consumer financial services and Venmo, and payment services and crypto.
The company aims to spend the rest of this year and much of 2027 rebuilding and expanding its consumer business while modernizing its technology. Management expects the momentum from those investments to build during the second half of next year.
It’s also hoping to expand beyond its core Venmo checkout business within financial services. Lores said he expected the area to represent PayPal’s largest source of future transaction margin growth.
Analysts like William Blair’s Andrew Jeffrey have called the takeover offer “lowball.” Michael Burry, best known for his bet against the housing market ahead of the subprime mortgage meltdown, said the bid was “simply too low.”