Saudi Arabia's PIF to Own 93% of EA If Proposed Buyout is Approved by Regulators - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 December 2025 / 4,039 Views
It was announced in September that Electronic Arts (EA) is being acquired and taken private in a $55 billion deal by an investor consortium that includes Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, which is founded and led by Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
More details on the acquisition has been released by The Wall Street Journal. It reveals Saudi Arabia's PIF will own 93.4 percent of EA if the acquisition is approved by regulators and EA stockholders.
Silver Lake will own 5.5 percent of the shares, while Affinity Partners will own the other 1.1 percent.
This does mean the vast majority of the deal will have to be covered by Saudi Arabia's PIF. The Wall Street Journal estimates it will have to pay around $29 billion in order to have a 93.4 percent ownership.
The report notes this is "unusual" for the PIF to own such a majority when they are part of a consortium. Usually the private equity firms will invest more as they are more experience in these types of deals and in running businesses. The PIF tends to "ride on the coattails" as a minority investor.
There was another recent report that the PIF was running low on cash for new investments. It has several projects that are in financial trouble. This includes a ski resort, cruise line, a coffee chain, and an electric vehicle start-up that hasn't delivered a car yet.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Hopefully the CMA are not weak this time (assuming global authorities have a say). If we have learnt anything in recent times then we know acquisitions are bad for the consumer.
I doubt they will. Prince Bonesaw is Trump's bestie, so Trump will make sure this acquisition goes through. He'll probably thumb his nose at European regulators while he's doing it, too. Also doesn't help that Trump's son-in-law will be a minority partner. European complaints will be ignored in this acquisition.
CMA is the UK so Trump (probably) won’t be involved there. The FTC on the other hand…
I don't think Trump cares about what EU or UK regulators think. He'll ram it through the FTC and completely ignore European regulators.
Just like he rams minors. -_-
Not a fan of everything Trump does, but that's quite an accusation.
He's in the Epstein files.
Maybe we'll get lucky and the whole Bonesaw family will be taken out. It'd be a blessing to the world at large, just like when Saddam was hanged and Gadhafi was stabbed in the ass.
I assume you’re comparing it to the Microsoft buyout of ABK, which I think is different as that was two established players merging versus private equity funds buying out a company.
Also were the CMA/FTC really weak on it? They spent aged scrutinising it and the CMA in particular drew some concessions out of Microsoft. Actually I remember a huge backlash from users on this site for holding the deal up unnecessarily and for no reason, which all seems funny in hindsight.
I’ve seen the sort that but EA stuff.
They wear backwards baseball caps, track and field clothes, tennis shoes… always dressed to go to the gym but look like they haven’t run in about 12 years.
Highly credulous toward podcast and guru culture, incredulous toward common sense and the sciences.
And they don’t care that the Saudi regime owns anything because they think the whole September 11th thing was an inside job. You’d think the majority of these were Trump-jumpers, but everyone I knew that did this was a Bernie Bro… shockingly a lot of overlap between Bernie Bros, Joe Rogan, and EA product consumption… at least a few of them believe other batshit crazy conspiracy theories like Suge Knight organized Tupac’s murder and Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain. And they all had this weird obsession with bacon.
I don’t know, maybe I’m overgeneralizing.
Why is the Trump family facilitating the sale of American companies to Saudi Arabia?
Because the Saudis are giving him money. "They forgot 9/11," they said of Zohran Mamdani's election, while the Trump administration rolls out the red carpet for the country that actually perpetrated 9/11 (and many other terrorist acts against the United States.)
He's a greedy waste of oxygen and so are the Saudis.
Then I'm no longer buying EA shit
Caveman!
