Electronic Arts stopped being a publicly traded company on August 4, 2026, closing what is now officially the largest leveraged buyout in corporate history, as confirmed in EA's own announcement. The $55 billion deal reshapes ownership of one of gaming's biggest publishers, and it comes with implications players are right to pay attention to.
The largest LBO ever recorded
The acquisition was carried out by a consortium made up of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), private equity firm Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, the investment firm run by Jared Kushner. At $55 billion, the deal surpasses the previous LBO record, the $45 billion buyout of energy company TXU back in 2007.
Shareholders were paid $210 per share in cash, roughly a 25 percent premium over EA's stock price before the deal was announced in September 2025. Ownership now splits heavily toward PIF, which holds the vast majority of the new private structure, with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners as smaller partners.
Nearly a year to actually close
The deal was first announced on September 29, 2025, and shareholders approved it by December of that year, with roughly 99 percent of votes in favor. Closing took far longer than expected. The transaction was originally slated to finish by the end of June 2026, but ran into an extended review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the federal body that screens foreign investments for national security concerns. Only after clearing that review did the deal finally close in early August.
A mountain of debt now sits on EA's books
The buyout is financed by roughly $36 billion in equity from the consortium, plus $20 billion in debt, $18 billion of which was drawn immediately at closing. That debt now sits directly on EA's balance sheet, which is precisely why analysts and developers alike are bracing for tighter margins across the company's studios, and potentially further layoffs.
One detail stands out for players specifically: EA Sports FC's Ultimate Team mode, the recurring microtransaction engine behind the franchise, is already being flagged as the primary lever the new ownership will lean on to help pay that debt down.
Real concerns from multiple directions
The reaction to the deal hasn't been quiet. Criticism has come from several distinct angles:
- Developers worried about layoffs and studio closures as debt pressure mounts
- US senators raising national security and foreign influence concerns over the ownership structure
- Human rights organizations pointing to PIF's broader strategy of investing heavily in sports and entertainment as a way to reshape Saudi Arabia's international image
What changes for the average player
Practically speaking, EA is no longer required to publish detailed quarterly earnings now that it's private, a shift that removes a layer of transparency players and analysts have relied on for years to track how individual studios are performing financially.
In terms of scale, this buyout trails only Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023, which remains the largest gaming acquisition ever recorded, though that deal was led by a strategic industry player rather than a financial consortium. For EA Sports FC 27 players specifically, the message is clear: Ultimate Team spending just became more directly tied to the company's ability to service billions in new debt, which makes it worth watching closely how aggressively that mode gets monetized going forward.
