The majority of Electronic Arts will reportedly shift to the Saudi Arabian government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) as part of the company’s massive $55 billion buyout. Recent antitrust filings with regulators in Brazil show the PIF is expected to take a 93.4% ownership stake in the company. This important disclosure clarifies the distribution of power among the small group of major investors finalizing the deal, which will take EA private and remove its stock from public trading exchanges.
The remaining shares of the gaming publisher will go to two private equity firms. Silver Lake will get 5.5% of the company, while Affinity Partners will secure 1.1%. The PIF needs to invest around $29 billion to achieve this overwhelming majority stake; this amount is slightly reduced by the $5.2 billion in EA stock that the fund already owns. The release of these specific figures, required for the regulatory review process, illustrates the scale of the transaction and the significant financial commitment from the fund.
Even though the deal is moving forward, the acquisition faces significant regulatory scrutiny in several international regions, which could take a long time. At least two United States senators have publicly expressed deep concerns about potential national security risks. These concerns relate to the possibility of the Saudi government accessing sensitive user data and influencing global audiences by owning one of the world’s largest video game publishers. This transaction is the latest example of the PIF’s aggressive expansion into the gaming sector, following previous high-profile investments, including a major stake in Nintendo and substantial funding for other development studios.
As the buyout progresses through necessary legal challenges—a process that might take years, as shown by the lengthy Microsoft-Activision Blizzard acquisition—the long-term impact on EA’s portfolio and corporate culture is a topic of intense speculation across the industry. Electronic Arts has previously assured its employees that the company’s mission and creative freedom will remain intact. However, the size of the PIF’s potential ownership share, effectively making it the main decision-maker, indicates that the fund’s influence will be hard to overlook as the company transitions into a privately held entity. The upcoming months will be crucial in determining whether the various international regulatory bodies share the same optimism about the publisher’s future.
