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PayPal is staging a comeback

PayPal's second-quarter earnings beat analyst expectations and the company named a new CFO.

PayPal headquarters

PayPal's second-quarter earnings beat expectations.

Photo: PayPal

PayPal reported second-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, adding hopes for investors that the payments giant was seeing a bounce-back from its previous quarter, when economic jitters wiped out the company's pandemic gains.

Perhaps more importantly for investors, PayPal also announced a $15 billion share buyback plan and confirmed activist investor Elliott Management had taken a stake in the company. Those appeared to be the largest factors boosting its share price in after-hours trading.

PayPal reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.93 per share, beating analyst expectations of $0.86 per share. That's still down from $1.15 in the year-ago period. PayPal reported revenue of $6.8 billion, meeting analyst estimates.

Total payment volume was $339.8 billion, up 9% from the year-ago period.

The company also announced Blake Jorgensen, formerly of Electronic Arts, as its new CFO effective Wednesday.

PayPal did slightly lower its full-year revenue guidance to 10% on a spot basis, and to 11% on a foreign exchange-neutral basis, the low end of prior guidance, after noting possible declines in the prior quarter.

PayPal shares were up more than 12% in after-hours trading.

Tomio Geron

Tomio Geron ( @tomiogeron) is a San Francisco-based reporter covering fintech. He was previously a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, covering venture capital and startups. He was also as a staff writer at Forbes covering social media and venture capital, and edited the Midas List of top tech investors. He can be reached at tgeron@protocol.com or tgeron@protonmail.com.

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