PayPal valued at US$52bil on return to market

NEW YORK: PayPal Holdings Inc shares jumped as much as 11% in their highly anticipated return to the Nasdaq yesterday, valuing the company at about US$52 billion (RM198 billion).

PayPal, spun off from eBay Inc, is widely expected to build partnerships with e-commerce rivals and try to seize market share from startups such as Stripe and Square and technology behemoth Apple Inc, which unveiled its own mobile payments service last year.

PayPal shares soared to US$42.55 in early trading, up from Friday’s close of US$38.35 when the shares were trading on a “when issued” basis. EBay’s stock fell as much as 4.7%, valuing the company at about US$32 billion.

“PayPal is the gorilla among independent digital payment service providers with more than 160 million active accounts, global scale and brand recognition,” analysts at JPMorgan said.

PayPal is also looking to compete with Western Union Co and other money transfer companies. CEO Dan Shulman said he was looking to use PayPal’s size to offer affordable financial services widely.

“It’s clear that the potential for mobile technology to transform money extends beyond commerce. The vast majority of the world’s 7 billion people lack access to even basic financial services,” Schulman told Reuters.

PayPal was founded in the late 1990s by venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk and others. It went public in 2002 and was acquired by eBay soon after for US$1.5 billion. – Reuters