• KORE Group Holdings (KORE) on Friday said that Searchlight Capital Partners and Abry Partners have entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of the company not already owned by the firms in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $726 million. Shares of KORE surged ~80% in premarket trading following the announcement.
• Equinix (EQIX) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) have entered into a joint agreement to purchase atNorth, a pan-Nordic data center operator, from Partners Group for $4B.
• Digital retail solutions provider Brink’s (BCO) on Thursday said it would acquire NCR Atleos (NATL) in a cash and stock deal valued at about $6.6 billion.
• Crispr Therapeutics (CRSP) quickly rose 5% amid some takeover speculation. Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) is speculated to be the company that has been studying a potential acquisition of Crispr (CRSP) since late last year, according to traders, who cited a Betaville “uncooked” alert that was circulating on Thursday.
• Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG) has acquired Germany-based Krose GmbH & Co KG. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 1920, Krose provides commercial insurance and reinsurance solutions for corporate clients across Germany and specializes in the design and placement of complex programs.
• PayPal (PYPL) soared 7.6% after a report that Stripe is considering an acquisition of all or parts of the company. Payment processing firm Stripe has indicated preliminary interest in a potential purchase of PayPal or its assets, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday.
• TopBuild (BLD) has entered into an agreement to acquire Johnson Roofing, a commercial roofing installation services company in Texas with about $29M in annual revenue.
• Accenture (ACN) has agreed to acquire Verum Partners to expand its capital projects capabilities in Latin America. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Completion is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
• Veris Residential (VRE) is set to be acquired by an investor consortium led by Affinius Capital for an implied enterprise value of $3.4B. Shares were 13.3% higher at $19.0 Monday premarket after the multifamily REIT reported Q4 earnings and revenue that exceeded Wall Street estimates.

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While news outlet Semafor later refuted those claims, it also reported that PayPal has been preparing for the possibility of an unwanted takeover offer.

We asked Seeking Alpha analysts Ragmar Rikberg and Atilla Zambito whether they thought PayPal would be taken over and who might be interested in acquiring it.

Ragmar Rikberg: I think PayPal’s (PYPL) current valuation makes it an attractive takeover target for a wide range of suitors. It’s important to remember that the company has 430M accounts, and in today’s fintech landscape—where wallets are one of the hottest areas—such scale is very attractive.

With an enterprise value of around $40B and roughly $6B in annual free cash flow, PayPal trades at low multiples that could also draw interest from private equity. They could potentially unlock more value by breaking the company into parts. A spinoff of Venmo, a growing business and a leader in its category, could make sense and might even be worth the majority of PayPal’s current market cap on its own.

Apple (AAPL) could be interested in PayPal’s consumer-facing business, given its strong push into wallets and the influence it already has over PayPal’s destiny through Apple Pay. Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google Pay could also be a logical contender, along with Meta (META), which explored fintech a few years ago with WhatsApp-based payments.

Large platforms are likely not interested in Braintree or PayPal’s other B2B units, but the consumer accounts and wallet base represent a highly attractive strategic asset, as I see it.

Atilla Zambito: After PayPal (PYPL) reached a market cap of just $38B, it was only a matter of time until the company received interest in all or part of its business.

First, PayPal is highly cash-generative and has a healthy balance sheet. Second, it has one of the largest user bases in the world. Moreover, PayPal owns attractive assets, such as its BNPL business, Venmo, and Braintree.

PayPal could be acquired by a large competitor like Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) to complement its own payment service or by a larger bank seeking to enter the fintech space. Business parts could be sold to competitors as well; for example, unbranded checkout Braintree to Adyen (ADYEY) (ADYYF) or Venmo to Block (XYZ). It remains to be seen who will buy what, but I’m convinced that investors will see some form of a deal or deals soon.

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PayPal (PYPL) has been working for months to prepare for a possible activist campaign or unwanted takeover

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Here are the four stocks to watch on the day:

Nvidia (NVDA) shares will be closely

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Payment processing firm Stripe has indicated preliminary interest in a potential purchase of Stripe or its assets, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday, which cited people familiar with the matter. The deliberations are still early, and there’s no certainty they’ll lead to a deal.

Stripe declined to comment to Bloomberg. PayPal didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The latest news comes after PayPal (PYPL) shares soared 6% on Monday after a Bloomberg report that PayPal had piqued the interest of some potential acquirers.

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The attention comes after PayPal stock slid ~44% in the past year, 22% in the past month alone.

The company that pioneered digital payments technology has held meetings with banks as it has received unsolicited interest from suitors, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. At least one large competitor is considering an acquisition of the entire company, while others are looking at specific parts of PayPal (PYPL), they added.

The interest in the company is at a preliminary stage and may not result in a transaction, the people told Bloomberg.

PayPal (PYPL) stock was hit hard earlier this month when it reported worse-than-expected Q4 earnings, issued soft 2026 guidance, and ousted its CEO after he failed to turn the company around quickly enough. Macquarie analyst Paul Golding called the Q4 results “a function of growing competition and suboptimal execution amid soft macro dynamics.”

The company’s branded checkout total payment volume, excluding foreign currency effects, rose only 1% Y/Y in the quarter. That segment is important to PayPal (PYPL) because it has a higher profit margin than its unbranded offerings.

The company’s 2026 guidance also demonstrated that PayPal (PYPL) is losing market share, BTIG analyst Andrew Harte said.

PayPal was founded in 1998 as Confinity, went public through an initial public offering in 2002, was acquired by eBay later that year, and then was spun off as a separately traded stock in 2015.

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It also trimmed its positions in United Airlines Holdings (UAL), to 511K shares from 582K shares in Q3, and Expedia Group (EXPE), to 322K from 360K.

Conversely, the firm opened new positions in Genius Sports (GENI), with 2.03M shares, and Six Flags Entertainment (FUN), with 1.12M shares, during the three-month period.

And it increased its stakes in Lionsgate Studios (LION), to 7.51M shares from 5M shares in Q3, and Global Payments (GPN), to 5.92M from 5.14M, the 13F filing showed.

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Seeking Alpha analysts Labutes IR, Dr. Christopher Davis of Quad 7 Capital, and Daniel Jones weigh in.

Labutes IR: Generally speaking, I think AI can be beneficial for the financial sector, as it should allow financial institutions to operate more efficiently and provide faster and better service to customers. This means larger financial institutions like JPMorgan (JPM) or Visa (V) should have, theoretically, some advantage compared to smaller players due to stronger financial resources and balance sheets to invest significantly in AI.

Having said that, I see neobanks, such as Sofi Technologies (SOFI) or Nu Holdings (NU), particularly well prepared to benefit from AI because their business models are usually based on digital infrastructures and cloud-native platforms, giving them a structural advantage within the financial sector to deploy AI tools successfully and be on the edge of technology compared to traditional financial companies.

Christopher Davis: Finding financial stocks that could benefit is much harder than finding potential victims.

The largest traditional banks that have billions to invest into proprietary research and AI development can withstand the blow, if not benefit. Institutions like JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC), along with investment banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), have the resources to build custom large language models that automate back-office operations. They can use the tech to enhance fraud detection and provide high-speed algorithmic trading and decision-making. So, while they could take a hit on fees from having human managers or decision-makers work with customers, they can make it up on the back end by reducing labor expenses for compliance, data entry tasks, and underwriting, as well as simply customer service.

The fintech and payment processing space should benefit, too. Their business models rely on speed and technology. Names like beaten-down and recent BAD BEAT Investing pick PayPal (PYPL), as well as Block (XYZ), already use AI to analyze millions of transactions to prevent fraud and optimize payment routing. Companies like SoFi (SOFI), Upstart (UPST), and Inter & Co (INTR) also rely on machine learning models to assess credit risk more accurately or match customers to the right products at the right rates while saving on labor costs.

Daniel Jones: As a general framework, I would say that the companies that will benefit the most from the rise of AI will be those that either utilize it to compress costs or those that have large amounts of complex and proprietary data that they can apply it to in order to boost revenue. Examples would be payment processors such as PayPal (PYPL), Visa (V), and Mastercard (MA).

The management team at PayPal specifically mentioned in their latest earnings call that they are using AI to leverage their cost base so that they can redirect spending to innovation. It and other payment processors are also using AI to detect fraud. Visa, for example, has embedded AI into its entire payment authorization and fraud detection operations. These AI models analyze data and assign a risk score to determine whether a transaction should be approved, challenged, or ultimately declined.

PayPal is already moving quickly into AI. In January, the company announced that it was acquiring Cymbio, which operates as a multichannel orchestration platform that helps brands sell across agentic surfaces. The company is also providing commerce services and checkout options for merchants on major AI platforms like Microsoft (MSFT) Copilot and Perplexity. And soon, it will be allowing the same through OpenAI’s (OPENAI) ChatGPT and Google’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Gemini.

You also have other companies such as SoFi Technologies (SOFI) and Lemonade (LMND). These companies have access to complex data sets that are proprietary in nature. When you apply for a loan or other financial product, they benefit from AI in that they can use it to achieve better underwriting results. In fact, SoFi has seen loan originations explode over the last couple of years now, with management commenting that AI has helped them achieve better underwriting results.

• Top Transaction & Payment Processing Stocks
• Top Diversified Bank Stocks
• Top Consumer Finance Stocks
• Top Property & Casualty Insurance Stocks

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Following the sharp selloff, analyst opinions remain deeply divided between those seeing a generational value opportunity and those warning of a structural value trap.

What Do Seeking Alpha Analysts Say About PayPal’s Future?

PayPal’s massive free cash flow generation of $6.4 billion in 2025 attracted some analysts, even with its recent issues. Similarly, these bulls pointed to the company’s aggressive $6 billion share buyback program planned for 2026.

The Bulls also highlighted Venmo’s 20% revenue growth to $1.7 billion and the stock’s historically low valuation of 7.6x forward earnings as providing significant margin of safety. At around $40 per share, bulls argued the free cash flow yield exceeding 16% should put a hard floor on the share price.

Bears, however, worried about a structural crisis in branded checkout, which saw growth slow to just 1% in Q4 compared to 5% in the prior quarter. Skeptics also noted that PayPal is losing significant market share to Apple Pay (AAPL) and Google Wallet (GOOG)(GOOGL), with the company now forced to negotiate and sacrifice economics just to maintain button placement on merchant websites.

The PYPL detractors also expressed concern that frequent CEO turnover indicates a lack of strategic continuity and suggests the turnaround story has failed to materialize.

Here’s a breakdown of what some analysts had to say:

• Daniel Schönberger, Rating: Strong Buy: “The undervaluation we are seeing right now is beyond words… beating down the stock towards a 7 times free cash flow multiple is extreme fear and a great investment opportunity, in my opinion.” – PayPal Seems Broken – And That Makes It A Strong Buy

• David Desjardins, Rating: Strong Buy: “My ‘Strong Buy’ rating reflects my view that PayPal offers a highly asymmetric risk-reward ratio at a price of around $40.00 per share. At one point, I would expect the significant free cash flow generation and strong balance sheet to put a hard floor on the share price.” – PayPal: An Overextended Sell-Off Creating The Perfect Buying Opportunity

• George Atuan, CFA, Rating: Hold: “The core business is struggling. Branded checkout has no moat as witnessed by competition continually forcing PayPal to defend button placement with pricing and incentives… I think this setup has value-trap vibes. Until I see clear proof that the core engine stabilizes, I’m not touching PYPL.” – PayPal: Cheap For A Reason As The Moat Disappears

• Danil Sereda, Rating: Hold: “Investors’ confidence—what has been left after years of PYPL’s price action deterioration—is now showing signs of structural impairment… I don’t see a reason for an actual reversal. Technicals will probably help PYPL bounce back up. However, that won’t solve the structural risks to the platform.” – PayPal Q4 Earnings Review: The Capitulation Bottom Or A Deep Value Trap?

• Kumquat Research, Rating: Sell: “Margins are expected to decline, expenses are expected to rise, EPS is projected to be negative-to-flat, free cash flow will likely be flat and capital expenditures will be minute relative to cash flow. These are all hallmarks of a business whose best days are behind it.” – PayPal Earnings: Time To Abandon This Sinking Ship

• James Foord, Rating: Sell: “PayPal’s main potential source of growth, branded checkout, has stalled, with Q4 branded checkout TPV growing just 1% and down from 5% QoQ… the business has failed to reinvent itself and continues to stagnate and lose market share.” – PayPal: Expensive At Any Price

What Do the Quant Ratings Say?

PayPal currently carries a Sell rating from Seeking Alpha’s quant system. The stock struggles with failing momentum and stalling growth, though it retains high marks for its underlying profitability.

Valuation: PayPal earns a D+ grade in valuation. While its forward P/E of 8 is significantly cheaper than the sector median of 12, suggesting the stock is undervalued relative to peers, this attractive multiple is overshadowed by deteriorating fundamentals.

Growth: The company receives a D+ grade in growth, with forward revenue growth projected at 4%, significantly below the sector median of 8%. This indicates a meaningful slowdown in the company’s expansion and performance.

Profitability: Profitability remains a bright spot with an A- grade, driven by a return on assets of 7% that substantially exceeds the sector median of 1%. This reflects the company’s effective use of its assets to generate earnings.

Momentum: Momentum receives an F grade, as the stock’s 49% one-year price decline drastically underperforms the sector’s 8% gain. This signals investor pessimism and a bearish outlook on the stock.

Earnings Revisions: The category earns a D grade following 38 downward revisions from analysts compared to only 3 upward revisions in the last three months, indicating analysts have reduced their earnings expectations.

What’s the Latest News on PayPal?

PayPal (PYPL) missed consensus on both revenue ($8.68 billion vs. consensus of $8.79 billion) and EPS ($1.23 vs. consensus of $1.29) in its Q4 report. Management withdrew its previously issued 2027 long-term targets and issued a cautious 2026 outlook, citing U.S. retail weakness and international headwinds, particularly in Germany.

For fiscal 2026, the company expects transaction margin dollars to decline slightly or remain roughly flat, while non-GAAP EPS could range from down low-single digits to slightly positive.

Meanwhile, the board appointed Enrique Lores, former CEO of HP Inc. (HPQ) and PayPal’s current board chair, as the company’s new president and CEO effective March 1. The leadership change comes as management acknowledged that “execution has not been what it needs to be, particularly in branded checkout.”

The 2026 strategic plan focuses on improving branded checkout execution, with a goal of bringing closer to 50% of consumers to “checkout-ready” status through biometric and passkey adoption by year end. PayPal faces intensifying competition from Apple Pay (AAPL), Google Wallet (GOOGL), Block (XYZ), Zelle, and Stripe, as transaction frequency per active account declined 5% year-over-year to 57.7.

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