EA is now a private company
Electronic Arts has closed its $55 billion deal to go private, with an investor group led by Saudi Arabia's PIF.
Electronic Arts (EA) has officially completed its transition to a private company. The deal, announced last September, involved an investor group led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, with a valuation of $55 billion. On Tuesday, the company confirmed the acquisition had closed.
According to reports, PIF is set to own 93.4 percent of the new entity. The transaction includes $20 billion in debt financing, making it the largest leveraged buyout in history. That scale could lead to major shifts at EA as the company works to justify the investment.
EA has recently centered its efforts on major tentpole franchises, including Battlefield, sports titles such as EA Sports FC and Madden NFL, and The Sims. Given the size of the deal, analysts expect the publisher to rely more on high-confidence releases rather than experimenting with smaller games. That approach mirrors a broader industry trend, with publishers like Ubisoft and Xbox also moving in that direction.
CEO Andrew Wilson told staff that he is more optimistic than ever about the company's next chapter, citing extraordinary opportunities ahead that will be realized through creativity, ambition, and belief in what's possible.
The EA deal follows a series of large acquisitions in the gaming sector, including Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, its $7.5 billion deal for ZeniMax Media, and Take-Two's $12.7 billion acquisition of Zynga.
