PayPal CFO Says 'The Challenge Is To Find The Right Fit' With Acquisitions

Paypal Holdings Inc PYPL's hunger for acquisitions to help fuel growth is likely to continue into the new year, CFO John Rainey told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday. 

PayPal most recently bought a 70% stake in the Chinese payment platform GoPay and acquired the shopping and rewards platform Honey Science.

PayPal's total M&A spend over the past two years stands at more than $7 billion, and the payments company looks for acquisition targets with annual transactions of $1 billion to $3 billion, Rainey told WSJ.

Wedbush Analyst Says PayPal Needs To 'Find The Right Fit' 

The list of privately held companies that PayPal could look at is "long," Wedbush Securities analyst Moshe Katri told WSJ, but the "challenge is to find the right fit."

Looking forward to 2020, PayPal is likely to continue targeting companies of similar size, and Rainey said there are "a lot of opportunities to acquire companies inorganically." 

At the same time, PayPal needs to take a cautious approach and be selective, he said. 

"For every transaction that we do, there are dozens that we turn away." 

PayPal shares were trading 0.17% higher at $108.94 at the time of publication Monday. 

Related Links:

Tilson: PayPal's 'Highly Deceptive Practices' Could Be Grounds For Class Action Lawsuit

Large PayPal Option Trader Betting On 5% More Downside