EA’s $55 Billion Take-Private Deal With Saudi PIF Closes August 4

Electronic Arts’ $55 billion take-private deal with a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund closed on August 4, 2026, ending EA’s run of more than three decades as a publicly traded company. EA confirmed the completion that day, and its common stock stopped trading and was delisted from NASDAQ.

The deal

The consortium is made up of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, the investment firm led by Jared Kushner. It paid $210 per share in cash, a 25% premium over EA’s last unaffected trading price, making it the largest all-cash sponsor take-private in history. PIF, which had been a minority EA investor for more than five years, rolled its existing stake of roughly 9.9% into the deal rather than cashing out, while Silver Lake and Affinity funded the rest of the equity alongside PIF.

The financing also includes roughly $20 billion in new debt arranged through JPMorgan Chase. EA confirmed on July 30 that every regulatory approval, including the sensitive CFIUS national-security review in the United States, had been obtained.

Timeline

The agreement was first announced on September 29, 2025. Shareholders approved it on December 22, 2025, with about 99% of votes in favor. The close then slipped past its original June 30 target while regulators finished their reviews, before completing on August 4.

What changes, what doesn’t

Andrew Wilson stays on as Chairman and CEO, and EA stays headquartered in Redwood City, California. What does change: EA no longer reports quarterly results to public investors, drops public-company reporting costs, and carries a much heavier debt load than before. The company reported fiscal 2026 revenue of about $7.5 billion, so servicing that debt will be a real factor in future spending decisions.

For players, nothing changes overnight. EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, Battlefield, Apex Legends and The Sims continue under the same studios and the same leadership. The longer-term questions are about priorities: which live-service games get more investment, how aggressively EA pushes monetization to cover debt costs, and whether private ownership lets the company take longer bets without quarterly pressure.

Why it matters

This is the biggest ownership change in gaming history, and it puts EA Sports FC, Battlefield, Apex Legends and The Sims under a private consortium with deep ties to Saudi Arabia’s broader push into global gaming and sports. Every EA-published game, including Hazelight’s Split Fiction and the EA Sports FC franchise, now sits under new ownership.

For the GCC, the deal adds EA to a growing portfolio of Saudi-linked gaming investments alongside PIF’s Savvy Games Group, which owns ESL FACEIT Group and Scopely, and the Riyadh-based Esports World Cup. Players in the region should watch for more EA events, tournaments and localized content, though no specific regional plans have been announced.