Electronic Arts has officially become a private company following a $55 billion deal led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. The PIF will reportedly own 93.4 percent of the new company.
The deal includes $20 billion in debt financing – making it the largest leveraged buyout ever – which could mean significant changes at EA to justify such a large sum. As of late, EA has been focusing heavily on its big tentpole franchises, including things like Battlefield, sports games like EA Sports FC and Madden NFL, and The Sims.
Given the stakes of the deal, it seems likely that EA will depend more on bankable releases rather than experimenting with smaller games – a strategy that many of the industry’s biggest publishers are also shifting towards. In a message to staff, CEO Andrew Wilson said: ‘As we begin this next chapter, I’m more optimistic than ever about what we’ll create together.’
The deal for EA follows other major video game industry acquisitions in recent years, including Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard, its $7.5 billion deal for Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media, and Take-Two’s $12.7 billion deal for Zynga.
