The largest leveraged buyout in history has closed. Electronic Arts is now private. A group led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund bought it for $55bn, alongside Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. The maker of The Sims, Battlefield and EA Sports FC comes with roughly $20bn of new debt attached.

The paperwork is finished. Shareholders get $210 per share, and EA’s stock has stopped trading and left the NASDAQ. EA announced the deal last September, and it cleared its last hurdles weeks ago. PIF now owns about 93% of the company. Chief executive Andrew Wilson stays on. He also named two new presidents, telling staff that Cam Weber will lead studios and David Tinson operations.

The debt question

What makes this a business story rather than a gaming one is the borrowing. PIF put in about $36bn. It borrowed another $20bn from JPMorgan, and EA carries the debt. By one estimate, the company’s debt load jumped roughly tenfold. EA now has to service that bill.

Analysts expect the money to reshape what EA makes. “I don’t know how EA is going to service this debt without significant layoffs, studio closures, and possibly IP sell-off,” F-Squared’s Michael Futter told CNBC. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier predicted more aggressive monetization. The likely path is to lean harder on safe, familiar franchises.

AI is part of the pitch too. Silver Lake’s Egon Durban said the group would back “what AI can do” in game development, echoing the money now flowing into AI for games. The industry is already cutting jobs as it chases fewer, bigger bets.

A state-owned catalogue

The other question is who now owns it. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman controls PIF. His government has faced human-rights accusations, including a 2019 UN finding on the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia denies it. Owning EA, one author told the BBC, hands the fund “a relationship with the 20,000 players, 750 clubs and 35 leagues” of professional football.

For some players, the worry is creative control. Games such as The Sims have long championed inclusivity and LGBT+ relationships. Saudi law can punish same-sex conduct severely under some interpretations of Sharia. An advocacy group has urged fans to petition against the deal, fearing censorship. EA and its owners have signalled no such change.

EA says it enters its next chapter “from a position of strength,” pointing to $7.5bn of revenue last year and Battlefield 6’s record October launch. The catalogue is one of gaming’s best. What the debt does to it is one question. What a state seeking soft power does with it is another. The industry will be watching.

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