Third-party game publisher EA (Electronic Arts), behind Madden, the returning College Football series, the former FIFA brand EA Sports FC, NHL, and the upcoming Battlefield 6, is reportedly going private in a buyout deal valued near $50 billion with key investors – private equity firm Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The report says a deal could be officially announced next week at the earliest While it’s not as big as Xbox’s Activision Blizzard almost $69 billion acquisition from a couple of years ago, the Wall Street Journal says that if the deal does goes through, in Wall Street’s history, would be the biggest leveraged buyout of all time.
Since the news has been known, the price of EA’s share price on the US stock market, which at 2 to 2:30 p.m. today was hovering around $170 to $171 range, has risen by almost 15 percent and now, according to Google Finance, is at $193.35, as of writing. According to Macrotrends, as of yesterday, EA as a company is valued at over $42 billion, which, with today’s news and the stock price increase, could go up when today’s valuation refreshes at the end of the day.
