Amid global M&A drama, some reports states that PayPal has approached Pinterest about a potential deal at a price of around $70 a share, valuing Pinterest at around $39 billion that could herald more financial technology and social media tie-ups in e-commerce.
Pinterest is an image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards.
Amid the rumours, Pinterest shares surged in New York trading and paved the way for a temporary trading halt. They jumped as much as 19%, hitting a high of $66 apiece. Pinterest has rolled out features that lets users make purchases from creators’ ‘Pins’.
A boom in online shopping has helped PayPal stock more than double since the start of last year, giving the company a market capitalisation of nearly $320bn.
PayPal’s interest comes at a very crucial time for Pinterest when the social media company recently announced the stepping down of cofounder Evan Sharp, to join Apple’s former Chief Design Officer Jony Ive’s firm, LoveFrom.
