Block's 28% plunge in February leads fintech sell-off, while Stripe shows benefit of staying private

Patrick Collison, chief executive officer and co-founder of Stripe Inc., left, smiles as John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 television interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, March 23, 2018. Stripe has once again shown why sometimes it's better to be private. During a February sell-off for fintech stocks, Block plunged 28%, its steepest decline since 2023, alongside drops of 20% or more for PayPal and Coinbase and a 8% slide in shares of SoFi . Meanwhile, Stripe on Thursday announced a tender offer for employee shares at a $91.5 billion valuation, making the payments company significantly more valuable than any of its public market peers. "In general, they benefit from being private because there's a handful of stocks that people want to buy and they trade at a premium to public valuations," said Larry Albukerk, founder of EB Exchange, which helps facilitate trades in shares of pre-IPO companies. He said Str ... Read full article.