EA is reportedly closing in on a $50 billion deal to go personal in what may turn out to be the largest leveraged buyout of all time.
Particulars on what could possibly be a monumental shift for the Madden and Battlefield writer come from a Wall Road Journal report. The positioning’s sources say traders embody private-equity agency Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund (PIF). Affinity Companions, an funding agency led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, can be mentioned to be within the combine.
Ought to the alleged deal be made official, an announcement could possibly be made as quickly as Monday. EA had a market worth of about $43 billion earlier than Wall Road Journal’s story was printed. That jumped practically 15% to round $48 billion since phrase of a transfer to go personal first arrived.
A $50 billion deal to take away EA from the general public inventory trade can be about $18 billion greater than the $31.8 billion buyout of Texas energy firm TXU, which occurred in 2007. Ought to the EA deal undergo, it might doubtless stand as the biggest leveraged buyout of all time (with out adjusting for inflation).
PIF’s supposed involvement within the buyout would see Saudi Arabia strengthen its already deep roots within the gaming business. It presently has a ten% stake in EA, and in 2022, it grew to become one of many largest Nintendo shareholders with 5.01% possession. Pokémon Go developer Niantic additionally introduced that it had bought its library of video games to cellular video games maker Scopely, which is managed by Savvy Video games and PIF, earlier this yr.
Ubisoft confronted backlash after asserting Murderer’s Creed Mirage DLC set in Saudi Arabia final month. The content material was introduced following a report from French outlet Les Echos, which shared particulars relating to a deal between the writer and PIF. Ubisoft staff had additionally raised issues a few partnership with the controversial entity, in response to GameFile.
Silver Lake, in the meantime, has partial possession in recreation engine tech firm, Unity. Ought to the take care of EA undergo, it might see PIF, Affinity, and Silver Lake as new house owners as EA goes personal.
The writer’s checklist of just lately launched video games contains a variety of EA Sports activities titles, comparable to EA Sports activities FC 26 and Madden NFL 26, in addition to Skate. Subsequent month, EA developer DICE will launch Battlefield 6, which has been poised a very essential second each for the sequence and the writer.
IGN has reached out to EA for remark.
Michael Cripe is a contract author with IGN. He is finest recognized for his work at websites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Make sure to give him a observe on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
