Fintech Giant PayPal Explores $45B Acquisition of Pinterest

PayPal is on an expansion path according to media reports of an offer to purchase of Pinterest at $70 per share in a $45 billion deal, mostly in stock. PayPal as of its most recent quarterly report, issued July 28, had $311 billion in receipts for Q2. PayPal’s share price fell 5 percent on the news, ending at $258.36 per share Wednesday. The move marks a decisive interest by PayPal to stake its claim in the space where content meets e-commerce. Pinterest, meanwhile, has launched a $20 million Creator Rewards fund and added more video features to its site.

The $70 per share translates to about a 25 percent increase from Pinterest’s Wednesday opening share price according to The New York Times, which notes that “If completed, the deal would be the largest in the consumer Internet industry over the past decade, topping Microsoft’s $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016 and Salesforce’s $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack last year, according to the data service firm Dealogic.”

Creator Rewards includes a suite of video tools, “like the ability to respond to videos with ‘Takes,'” reports TechCrunch, likening the offerings to those of Snapchat and TikTok. The expanded toolkit allows users to tag their Pins with links from the Amazon Associates affiliate program. This summer Pinterest incorporated affiliate programs from Rakuten and ShopStyle.

Pinterest is redesigning its home page in a more video-forward format. “Pinterest could have an advantage in that it lets viewers save the Pin and organize it into your Pinterest Boards,” notes TechCrunch. “TikTok, meanwhile, is very lacking in terms of saving and organizing the content you liked and want to refer back to, leading many users to download videos to their phone instead.”

Pinterest’s newly debuting Takes feature allows creators to respond to somebody else’s Idea Pin with a Pin of their own, with the response linking back to the sourced original. “A creator could try someone’s recipe but then offer their own variation” or “replicate the project another creator suggested, and show their results,” TechCrunch offers by way of examples.

To launch Takes, Pinterest has enlisted celebrities Jennifer Lopez, Megan Thee Stallion and Storm Reid.

The company is also launching Creator Originals with content from more than 100 creators across 10 countries, running now through January 2022. The creators will advise Pinterest users on expertise in areas including beauty, cooking, home décor, wellness and fashion.

UPDATE: PayPal Not Planning to Acquire Image-Sharing App Pinterest

Related:
Pinterest’s Marketing Allure Drives Suitors’ Interest, The Wall Street Journal, 10/21/21
Why PayPal Buying Pinterest Isn’t Really That Weird, Yahoo! Finance, 10/21/21

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.