Electronic Arts, maker of video games like “Madden NFL,” “Battlefield,” and “The Sims,” is being acquired for $52.5 billion in what could become the largest-ever buyout funded by private-equity firms.
The private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, and Affinity Partners will pay EA’s stockholders $210 per share. Affinity Partners is run by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
PIF, which was already the largest insider stakeholder in EA, will be rolling over its existing 9.9% stake in the company.
The commitment to the massive deal is in line with recent activity by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, writes Andrew Marok of Raymond James.
“The Saudi PIF has been a very active player in the video gaming market since 2022, taking minority stakes in most scaled public video gaming publishers, and also outright purchases of companies like ESL, FACEIT, and Scopely,” he writes. “The PIF has made its intentions to scale its gaming arm, Savvy Gaming Group, clear, and the EA deal would represent the biggest such move to date by some distance.”
EA, which used to have a presence in Baton Rouge, announced earlier this year that it would lay off hundreds of workers. The company had about 13,700 employees at the end of March 2024. The cuts come roughly two years after EA closed its Baton Rouge facility—once hailed as its North American Testing Center—and laid off 200 local workers.
