Electronic Arts in Talks to Go Private in Nearly $50 Billion Deal

Publicly traded video game giant Electronic Arts is closing in on a nearly $50 billion deal to become a privately held company, Variety has confirmed.

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal Friday, a group of investors, including private-equity firms Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners are in talks with the maker of “The Sims,” “Battlefield” and “Madden” franchises to take the company private. If the deal goes through, it would like be the biggest leveraged buyout in history based on EA’s current $48.38 billion market cap.

Representatives for Electronic Arts and Silver Lake did not immediately respond to request for comment Friday.

In its most recent quarterly earnings report for the April 1-June 30 quarter, EA reported non-GAAP diluted EPS of 79 cents on $1.3 billion in net bookings ($1.67 billion in revenue). The company “saw better-than-expected contributions from many areas in our portfolio, including ‘EA Sports,’ ‘Apex Legends,’ and catalog.” EA did not disclose specific sales figures for the games, but noted “EA Sports” saw a “record quarter” for “FC Mobile” sales.

Led by CEO Andrew Wilson, EA’s current biggest priority is the upcoming wide release of “Battlefield 6” on Oct. 10, but its catalog of game franchises also includes “Skate” (with its latest game having entered early access this month), “EA Sports FC” (rebranded from “FIFA”), “Apex Legends,” “The Sims,” “EA Sports,” “Madden NFL,” “EA Sports College Football,” “Need for Speed,” “Dragon Age,” “Titanfall,” “Plants vs. Zombies” and “EA Sports F1,” among others.