The biggest payments deal on the table just evaporated. Advent International and Stripe have reportedly walked away from their pursuit of PayPal — abandoning an offer of more than $50 billion that would have ranked among the largest leveraged buyouts in history. Investors who had bid the stock up for weeks on takeover hopes got a brutal reminder that a deal isn’t done until it’s done.

A $50 billion deal, gone

According to Bloomberg, the consortium of buyout firm Advent and payment processor Stripe has decided to abandon its bid for the fintech pioneer. People familiar with the matter said the group had previously offered more than $50 billion — a price that would have made it one of the biggest-ever leveraged buyouts. Representatives for Advent, PayPal and Stripe all declined to comment.

The stock paid the price

The market reaction was immediate. PayPal shares tumbled as much as 16% in premarket trading Friday, a sharp reversal for a stock that had climbed steadily as speculation about a takeover built. Weeks of gains built on deal hope unwound in a single morning once the hope disappeared.

Why it matters

PayPal, founded in the late 1990s, helped invent online payments — and the fact that a buyout group was willing to consider paying north of $50 billion for it, then walked, says a lot about how the market is pricing legacy fintech right now. A deal of that scale would have been a landmark; its collapse is a reminder that even blue-chip names get caught in the gap between what buyers will flirt with and what they’ll actually sign. For now, PayPal stays public, its would-be acquirers stay on the sidelines, and shareholders are left holding a stock that just gave back weeks of gains.

Written for Red Robot with AI assistance and human editing. Based on reporting by Bloomberg.