Mega-deal for the sale of Electronic Arts for $55 billion

The consortium of buyers includes the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners — Kushner being Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

EA has been a household sanction successful gaming for implicit 40 years. It is known for producing and publishing games specified arsenic EA FC (formerly FIFA), The Sims, Mass Effect, and Battlefield 6.

EA’s shot crippled bid unsocial has sold 325 cardinal copies since its archetypal merchandise successful 1993. The Sims, wherever players physique their ain virtual worlds, has sold implicit 200 cardinal copies, portion Need For Speed has sold implicit 150 cardinal copies.

According to the BBC, this is the largest leveraged buyout successful history, with a important information of the acquisition being financed done debt. Specifically, the companies acquiring EA volition lend astir $36 cardinal themselves, with the remainder financed done loans.

The statement volition crook EA into a backstage company, meaning each its shares volition beryllium purchased and it volition nary longer commercialized connected the banal market.

The acquisition terms adds astir 25% to EA’s marketplace value, valuing it astatine $210 per share.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson, who volition stay successful his role, called the woody a “strong recognition” of the company’s work.

An manufacture adept told the BBC that portion EA was unfastened to a imaginable purchaser who could assistance the institution advance, the buyout by backstage equity was unexpected. They besides noted manufacture concerns astir the woody and the $20 cardinal successful indebtedness it would bring, which would request to beryllium repaid.