Electronic Arts completed its transition from public company to private ownership on 4 August 2026, closing a $55 billion transaction widely reported as the largest leveraged buyout on record, surpassing the previous benchmark set by the 2007 TXU buyout. The buyer consortium, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), private equity firm Silver Lake and investment firm Affinity Partners, now controls the publisher of EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, The Sims, Battlefield, F1 and College Football. For European sport, the significance sits mainly with EA Sports FC, the football title that succeeded the FIFA-branded series after EA and FIFA announced on 10 May 2022 that their licensing partnership would not be renewed, with FIFA 23 the final title under the old branding and EA Sports FC 24 launching in 2023.

What the deal actually involved

EA shareholders received $210 in cash per share, a 25 per cent premium to the company's unaffected share price of $168.32 at market close on 25 September 2025, the day before the deal was first reported. Per EA's announcement of the definitive agreement, the transaction was structured as roughly $36 billion in equity, contributed by the three consortium members plus PIF's rollover of its existing 9.9 per cent EA stake, and $20 billion in debt financing fully and solely committed by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., of which $18 billion was expected to be funded at close under the terms announced in September 2025. Shareholders approved the deal at a virtual meeting on 22 December 2025, with roughly 99 per cent of votes cast in favour. EA's board had approved the agreement before it went to shareholders.

On closing, PIF's combined equity, rollover plus new cash, left it holding what a regulatory filing reported by the Wall Street Journal put at 93.4 per cent of the now-private company, with Silver Lake at 5.5 per cent and Affinity Partners at 1.1 per cent. EA's stock has been delisted from Nasdaq. Andrew Wilson continues as chairman and chief executive, and the company remains headquartered in Redwood City, California.

Why the regulatory path ran through Europe

Regulatory clearance took roughly ten months from announcement to close. The parties' original target was a close during the first quarter of EA's 2027 fiscal year, defined in EA's SEC filings as 1 April to 30 June 2026; the transaction closed on 4 August 2026, after that initial target window but before the merger agreement's original outside date of 28 September 2026.

The European Commission cleared the deal under the EU Merger Regulation on 23 July 2026, as reported by Reuters. A separate assessment ran under the EU's Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the instrument the Commission uses to assess whether financial support from a non-EU government could distort competition inside the single market; the same coverage recorded the Commission's Phase 1 decision deadline as 30 July 2026. EA identified the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) among the regulatory approvals required to complete the merger, and on 30 July 2026 confirmed, in a filing reported by the games trade publication Game Developer, that all required approvals had been obtained. The deal closed on 4 August 2026, five days after that confirmation.

The Foreign Subsidies Regulation review is the detail most relevant to a European audience: it confirms that a transaction bringing sovereign-fund capital into a company whose products are consumed at scale across the EU fell within a broader EU competition instrument that allows the Commission to examine potentially distortive financial contributions from non-EU governments, not only the general merger-control process that would apply regardless of the buyer's identity.

What Andrew Wilson, PIF and Silver Lake said about the deal

Andrew Wilson, EA's chairman and chief executive, framed the deal around continuity of EA's creative output: "Our creative and passionate teams at EA have delivered extraordinary experiences for hundreds of millions of fans, built some of the world's most iconic IP, and created significant value for our business," he said in EA's announcement.

Turqi Alnowaiser, PIF's Deputy Governor and Head of International Investments, described the transaction as an extension of the fund's existing gaming strategy: "PIF has demonstrated a strong commitment to these sectors, and this partnership will help further drive EA's long-term growth, while fueling innovation within the industry on a global scale."

Egon Durban, Silver Lake's Co-CEO and Managing Partner, pointed to EA's sports portfolio specifically: "EA is a special company: a global leader in interactive entertainment, anchored by its premier sports franchise." Jared Kushner, Affinity Partners' chief executive, called EA "an extraordinary company with a world-class management team and a bold vision for the future." All four statements are quoted from EA's 29 September 2025 announcement.

How EA fits PIF's broader gaming portfolio

EA is not PIF's first gaming acquisition, and the scale of the fund's prior activity in this sector is the context that gives the deal its weight beyond EA itself. PIF's dedicated gaming vehicle, Savvy Games Group, was established in 2022 and has since built a portfolio that includes the acquisition of esports organisations ESL and FACEIT, reported at $1.5 billion (announced January 2022, subsequently combined as ESL FACEIT Group), and the acquisition of mobile games publisher Scopely, reported at $4.9 billion (2023). Scopely, in turn, completed its own acquisition of Niantic's games business, reported at $3.5 billion, on 29 May 2025, bringing Pokémon Go and related titles inside the Savvy structure. The transaction values for the ESL FACEIT, Scopely and Niantic deals are as carried in contemporaneous trade coverage rather than in Savvy Games Group's own disclosures. In March 2026, Savvy Games Group agreed to acquire MOONTON Technology, publisher of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, from ByteDance for more than $6 billion, per Bloomberg's reporting of 20 March 2026; completion of that transaction was not confirmed in the public sources reviewed for this article. Separately, in February 2026 PIF transferred its Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) holding, reported at approximately 11 million shares worth just under $3 billion, to Savvy Games Group, aligning its gaming holdings under a single structure.

Voice Sport editorial-read: the reading that PIF has been building a broader set of gaming holdings and exposures rests on five documented transactions: ESL and FACEIT (2022), Scopely (2023), Niantic's games business through Scopely (completed 29 May 2025), the Take-Two stake transfer to Savvy Games Group (February 2026) and the MOONTON agreement (March 2026, completion not confirmed in public sources reviewed). EA sits outside that Savvy-owned layer: the take-private was executed directly by the PIF-Silver Lake-Affinity consortium, not by Savvy Games Group. Measured against PIF's overall gaming exposure, EA is the largest gaming acquisition yet associated with the fund, and the first that brings a top-tier sports-simulation franchise, EA Sports FC, directly into PIF's ownership rather than into a Savvy portfolio company's catalogue.

What changes, and what does not, for EA Sports FC and Madden NFL

Day-to-day operations are the part of the deal least likely to change quickly. Wilson remains CEO, EA remains headquartered in California, and the company's public statements have emphasised continuity of its creative teams and existing franchises. What has changed structurally is the absence of quarterly public-market reporting, and the shift of ultimate financial control to a consortium in which one sovereign fund holds a 93.4 per cent stake. For European stakeholders, that combination is the one to watch: EA Sports FC's commercial partnerships, licensing terms with European leagues and federations, and any pricing or roadmap decisions will now be evaluated inside a private ownership structure rather than one exposed to public shareholder scrutiny and disclosure requirements.

Forward look

The transaction's effects are more likely to become observable over the next several EA Sports FC and Madden NFL product cycles than immediately. Two areas are worth tracking. First, whether Savvy Games Group folds EA into its existing structure alongside ESL FACEIT Group and Scopely, or keeps it as a standalone holding: either outcome would be an observable indicator of how the now-substantial gaming portfolio is being structured, and neither has been stated publicly. Second, whether the debt structure, $20 billion committed under the terms announced in September 2025, of which $18 billion was expected to be funded at close, shapes EA's investment choices in ways that differ from those a company reporting to public shareholders would have made. Neither question has a public answer yet, and this article does not impute the operational, commercial or licensing consequences of the ownership change. What is established is the deal's scale, its European regulatory path, and its place as the largest addition to a Saudi sovereign-fund gaming portfolio that has been building since 2022.

Sources

  • Electronic Arts, "EA Announces Agreement to be Acquired by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for $55 Billion", press release, 29 September 2025 — https://news.ea.com/press-releases/press-releases-details/2025/EA-Announces-Agreement-to-be-Acquired-by-PIF-Silver-Lake-and-Affinity-Partners-for-55-Billion/default.aspx
  • Public Investment Fund newswire, "Electronic Arts announces completion of acquisition by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners", 4 August 2026 — https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/news-and-insights/newswire/2026/electronic-arts-announces-completion-of-acquisition-by-pif-silver-lake-and-affinity-partners/
  • Game Developer, "EA says all regulatory approvals have been cleared for its take-private deal", 30 July 2026 — https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/ea-says-all-regulatory-approvals-have-been-cleared-for-its-take-private-deal
  • Reuters, "Saudi PIF's $55 billion EA deal approved under EU merger rules", 23 July 2026 — https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/saudi-pifs-55-billion-ea-deal-approved-under-eu-merger-rules-2026-07-23/
  • European Commission, DG Competition, Foreign Subsidies Regulation overview — https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/foreign-subsidies-regulation_en
  • The Wall Street Journal, "Saudi Fund to Own Almost All of Electronic Arts After Buyout" — https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/saudi-fund-to-own-almost-all-of-electronic-arts-after-buyout-661e92be
  • Savvy Games Group, "Scopely completes acquisition of Niantic's games business", 29 May 2025 — https://www.savvygames.com/news/scopely-completes-acquisition-of-niantic-games-business
  • Bloomberg, "ByteDance Agrees to Sell Moonton to Savvy Games for $6 Billion", 20 March 2026 — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-20/bytedance-agrees-to-sell-moonton-to-savvy-games-for-6-billion
  • PocketGamer.biz, "Saudi Arabia's PIF transfers $3bn Take-Two stake to Savvy Games Group", February 2026 — https://www.pocketgamer.biz/saudi-arabias-pif-transfers-3bn-take-two-stake-to-savvy-games-group/
  • CNBC, "FIFA video game to disappear as EA Sports partnership ends", 10 May 2022 — https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/fifa-video-game-to-disappear-as-ea-sports-partnership-ends.html
  • CNBC, "Saudi PIF and Kushner's Affinity finalize $55 billion EA Sports deal", 5 August 2026 — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/05/saudi-wealth-fund-jared-kushner-ea-sports-deal.html
  • SportsTechX Newsletter #192, "EA goes private in $55B Saudi-led deal", 7 August 2026 — https://newsletter.sportstechx.com