Saudi Arabia's PIF Buys EA for $55B, Marking a New Era in Gaming

Electronic Arts has completed its sale to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, in a transaction valued at $55 billion . EA stockholders receive $210 in cash per share, and the company's common stock has been delisted from the Nasdaq, ending a listing that dated back decades .

The deal is the largest leveraged buyout on record and closes a process that began when the consortium's agreement was announced on September 29, 2025 and approved by EA stockholders at a special meeting on December 22, 2025. It also marks the most significant step yet in PIF's decade-long accumulation of gaming assets, moving the fund from a large minority holder of listed publishers to outright owner of the studio behind EA Sports FC, Madden, Battlefield and The Sims.

For public-market investors the immediate consequence is the removal of a large-cap interactive entertainment name from the index complex, which concentrates listed exposure to the category in a smaller set of peers such as TTWO and RBLX. The open questions now sit with the private entity: reporting on the deal has raised the prospect of cost reductions and layoffs under an owner carrying buyout leverage, and EA's release cadence and studio structure will no longer be visible through quarterly disclosure. What to watch is how the consortium finances the equity cheque against debt, and whether Take-Two's multiple re-rates on scarcity value in the category.

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