PayPal tops Q2 estimates and raises full-year forecast amid Stripe takeover bid

Shares in PayPal Holdings Inc. closed regular trading up 4% today after the payments company beat expectations on revenue and earnings in its second quarter and raised its full-year profit forecast, less than two weeks after a $53 billion buyout offer from Stripe Inc. and Advent International L.P. that its board considers too low.

For the quarter ended on June 30, PayPal reported adjusted earnings of $1.38 per share, down 1% from a year earlier, on revenue of $8.68 billion, up 5%. Analysts were expecting $1.28 per share on revenue of $8.47 billion. On an unadjusted basis, net income fell 12% to $1.1 billion, or $1.25 per share.

Total payment volume rose 10% to $486.4 billion and payment transactions rose 8% to 6.8 billion. Active accounts were up 0.3% year-over-year at 439 million, though the figure slipped by about 200,000 from the first quarter.

Profitability moved the other way. Adjusted operating income fell 8% to $1.5 billion. Adjusted operating margin contracted 248 basis points to 17.4%. Transaction margin dollars rose 1% to $3.9 billion. That is the number Chief Executive Enrique Lores has put at the center of his turnaround plan.

Branded checkout volume grew 2% on a currency-neutral basis, the second quarter in a row it has managed that. The business has been the sore point in PayPal’s core for years. Growth was faster elsewhere. Buy now, pay later volume jumped 26%. Venmo and Braintree both grew in the mid-teens.

Lores, who replaced Alex Chriss in February, said PayPal had “moved with urgency” during the quarter to sharpen its transformation plan. Branded checkout, in his words, has “further stabilized.”

That plan targets at least $1.5 billion in cost savings over two to three years, with $400 million of it identified for 2026. Chief Financial Officer Jamie Miller told analysts on a conference call that the aim is faster transaction margin growth over time from a wider set of revenue streams.

Guidance went up too. PayPal put full-year adjusted earnings at about $5.38 per share. Its earlier forecast had run anywhere from a low single-digit decline to slightly positive growth. The full-year transaction margin dollars target went to $15.6 billion. For the third quarter, the company guided to a low-single-digit percentage decline in adjusted earnings from $1.34 a year ago.

PayPal bought back about 33 million shares during the quarter, spending $1.5 billion. It also declared a dividend of 14 cents per share, payable Sept. 25 to holders of record as of Sept. 4.

The results land in the middle of a takeover fight. Stripe and Advent bid $60.50 per share for PayPal on July 15 and were reportedly turned down on July 20, with the board holding out for a price closer to $70. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. analyst Ramsey El-Assal put together a peer-multiple sum-of-the-parts valuation the day after the offer surfaced, covering Venmo, branded checkout and Braintree, that implied roughly $70 a share would more fully reflect PayPal’s intrinsic value. His price target on the stock is $54 and his rating is neutral.

Photo: PayPal