Video gamer Electronic Arts to be bought in largest-ever private equity buyout valued at $55 billion

Electronic Arts, the maker of video games like “Madden NFL," “Battlefield,” and “The Sims,” is being acquired by an investor group including Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund in the largest private equity-funded buyout in history.

The investors, who also include a firm managed by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, valued the deal $55 billion.

EA stockholders will receive $210 per share. The deal far exceeds the $32 billion price tag to take Texas utility TXU private in 2007, which had shattered records for leveraged buyouts.

PIF, which was currently the largest insider stakeholder in Electronic Arts, will be rolling over its existing 9.9% investment in the company.

The commitment to the massive deal is in line with recent activity in the gaming sector by the Saudi fund, wrote 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 wrote. “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.”

PIF is also a minority investor in Nintendo.

The deal needs approval from national security regulators on the Committee on Foreign Investment given that the Saudis are involved, but there are plenty of reason to expect it will go through.

Not only does Trump’s son-in-law want to do the deal, but the president could also be inclined to look favorably on any Saudi investment because he has benefited directly from their spending. His family business has been paid by Saudi-backed LIV Golf for hosting its tournaments at his clubs starting at a difficult time years ago when the PGA Tour pulled out of events at the same venues following the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol by Trump supporters in 2021.

The U.S. agency leading the foreign investment committee, the Treasury Department, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the potential conflicts of interest.

If the transaction closes as anticipated, it will end EA’s 36-year history as a publicly traded company that began with its shares ending its first day of trading at a split-adjusted 52 cents.

The IPO came seven years after EA was founded by former Apple employee William “Trip” Hawkins, who began playing analog versions of baseball and football made by “Strat-O-Matic” as a teenager during the 1960s.

CEO Andrew Wilson has led the company since 2013 and he will remain in that role, the firms said Monday. Electronic Arts would be taken private and its headquarters would remain in Redwood City, California.

Kushner, the CEO of Affinity Partners, said, “​I’ve admired (EA's) ​ability to create iconic, lasting experiences, ​and ​as ​someone ​who ​grew up playing their ​games ​- and now enjoys them with his ​kids - I couldn’t be ​more ​excited about ​what’s ​ahead.”

The size of the video game market has attracted large investors in recent years.

One of EA’s biggest rivals Activision Blizzard was snapped up by technology powerhouse Microsoft for nearly $69 billion in 2023, while the competition from mobile video game makers such as Epic Games has intensified.

This marks the second high-profile deal involving Silver Lake and a technology company with a legion of loyal fans in recent weeks. Silver Lake is also part of a newly formed joint venture spearheaded by Oracle involved in a deal to take over the U.S. oversight of TikTok’s social video platform, although all the details of that complex transaction haven’t been divulged yet.

By going private, EA will be able to retool operations without worrying about market reactions. Although its video games still have a fervent following, EA’s annual revenues have been stagnant during the past three fiscal years, hovering from $7.4 billion to $7.6 billion.

Mike Hickey of The Benchmark Company thinks the proposed deal's $210 per share offer price may be falling short of EA's intrinsic value.

“With Battlefield 6 about to launch and a pipeline that could add more than $2B in incremental bookings by FY28, the true earnings power of EA is only beginning to emerge,” he wrote.

Hickey is unsure if the transaction is in shareholders' best interest.

“The board’s decision to recommend a sale at $210 per share suggests a prioritization of near-term certainty and legacy over maximizing long-term shareholder value,” he wrote to clients.

But Nick McKay of Freedom Capital Markets believes the offer makes sense for EA because share price appreciation is likely limited given that the success of its sports franchises and various live services streams are already mostly baked into the stock.

“The financial backing and resources of the investor consortium should enable EA to increase its focus on long-term growth opportunities that may have been viewed as too risky or expensive as a public company,” he wrote in an analyst note.

EA shares rose 4.5% Monday after jumping 15% on Friday when reports of a possible takeover began to circulate.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. It still needs approval from EA shareholders.

The EA Sports logo is seen on a soccer pitch at the Electronic Arts' office and studio complex, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, as the maker of video games like “Madden NFL," “Battlefield,” and “The Sims,” is being acquired for $55 billion in what could become the largest private equity-funded buyout in history. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

The EA Sports logo is seen on a soccer pitch at the Electronic Arts' office and studio complex, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

The EA Sports logo is seen on a soccer pitch at the Electronic Arts' office and studio complex, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

FILE - The logo for Electronic Arts is displayed during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on June 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

It was at a relatively minor event in upstate New York in September 2022 that Ilia Malinin, the self-anointed “Quad God" who was fast becoming the biggest name in figure skating, finally landed the jump that so many people had thought impossible.

Others had tried quad axels in competition over the years. All of them had fallen. That extra 180 degrees of rotation — necessary for the only jump in skating that starts with a forward-facing entry — proved to be a half-revolution too much.

So when Malinin landed it inside the arena made famous by the U.S. hockey team's upset of the Soviets at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, it not only sent shockwaves through the tight-knit skating community but made headlines around the world.

“My mind was just blown,” said two-time Olympic skater Jason Brown.

Yet by conquering the gravity-defying jump, Malinin also raised an important question: What comes next?

The six main jumps in figure skating have been standard since the early 1900s. The only difference between then and now is the number of revolutions. Dick Button landed the first double axel in 1948, and the first triple jump four years later. Kurt Browning landed the first quad, a toe loop, in 1988, and it was 10 years before Timothy Goebel landed the first quad salchow.

By landing the quad axel, Malinin may have maxed out the boundaries of human performance. Most sports scientists agree that the speed and amplitude necessary for five-revolution jumps truly is impossible, leaving figure skating at a crossroads, where a dearth of innovation threatens to take the shine off a sport already fighting to maintain popularity.

“I think it's kind of natural that we were going to get to this point,” said Malinin, the overwhelming favorite to win gold for the U.S. at the Milan Cortina Olympics. "But I haven't reached my top, whether it's in the technical and how much I can jump and spin, but also in the creativity.”

Malinin, 20, points to his signature “raspberry twist,” a somersaulting spin unlike anything that anybody else does. He created it himself, and it tends to bring down the house whenever he throws it down near the end of his programs.

Yet the flashy maneuver also underscores one of the inherent problems with trying to be creative: It doesn't get rewarded.

The International Skating Union has rigid requirements for both short programs and free skates, and it rarely pays off to deviate too far from the script. Malinin might not get a lot of extra points for landing his raspberry twist, for example, since it is not one of the six standard figure skating jumps, but a failure to land it could cost him dearly.

“Absolutely, there are a lot of things I've wanted to try,” Malinin told The Associated Press, “because I think it would be really cool and appealing. But it's a bigger risk for the program itself, and the system and scoring means it doesn't make sense.”

In other words, what's the point in trying to innovate?

“There are so many rules in your programs that you don't have too much wiggle room,” said Alysa Liu, the reigning world champion. “A lot of these rules really restrict us. Like, all of our spins look the same now, but they could look so different."

“One of my training mates, Sonja Himler, does these incredible programs," added Amber Glenn, a three-time U.S. champion, and along with Liu one of the favorites to win Olympic gold for the American team in February.

“Like, she spins the other way, jumps the other way — really cool things that, you know, someone who's watched a little bit of skating will be like, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen that before,'” Glenn said. “Whereas if I go and do, you know, the norm, and do it well, versus what she does, my scores will be better, even though what she does is way more impressive, in my opinion.”

Justin Dillon, the manager of high performance at U.S. Figure Skating, acknowledged having had hard conversations with some skaters about their programs. They may have planned something unique or interesting, but the risk wouldn't be worth the reward.

“I encourage individuality, and bringing it to the ice,” Dillon said, “but if they do something so avant-garde that it doesn't check those boxes, then it really doesn't serve them. It doesn't always mean throw it out, but what can we do to make it a home run?”

To its credit, figure skating's governing body has loosened some restrictions in recent years. The backflip, which was long banned in competition because of its inherent danger, is allowed now, though it also doesn't carry a whole lot of scoring weight.

Is that hold-your-breath element of risk and uncertainty the next big step in skating?

“I mean, you're cringing. It legit scares me," Glenn said of the backflip. “If you can do it, great. I think it's so fun. I want to learn it once I'm done competing. But the thought of practicing it in like, a warmup or in training, it just scares me.”

Brown has never been able to consistently land quad jumps in competition. Instead, he relies on near-perfect execution of triple jumps, along with arguably the best artistry in figure skating, to consistently challenge for podium placements in major competitions.

Maybe, Brown mused, the next innovation in figure skating has nothing to do with extreme feats of athletic ability.

“I have so much respect for the ways in which people are pushing the sport technically,” he said, "but I think the more that people fixate on executing an element, the less risk people take artistically, because they’re already taking these risks technically. And it is very hard to do both. So maybe the next step for figure skating is to reward the story we're trying to tell."

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Amber Glenn skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Amber Glenn skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Ilia Malinin skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Ilia Malinin competes during the men's free skate competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Ilia Malinin competes during the men's short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)