THE ESPORTS ADVOCATE No Result View All Result Money People Brands Events & Tournaments Entertainment THE ESPORTS ADVOCATE Electronic Arts Delists From Nasdaq as PIF-Led Consortium Closes $55B Buyout The publisher of Apex Legends and EA Sports FC now answers to the same sovereign fund that finances the Esports World Cup and, through Savvy Games Group, owns tournament operator ESL FACEIT Group. by Tobias Seck August 5, 2026 in Money Reading Time: 5 mins read Image credit: PIF Electronic Arts common stock stopped trading before Wednesday’s opening bell, completing a $55 billion take-private that hands Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund control of the publisher behind EA Sports FC , Apex Legends and Madden NFL . According to a Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission , Oak-Eagle MergerCo, an entity formed by PIF, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, merged into Electronic Arts on Aug. 4, with EA surviving as a wholly owned subsidiary of Oak-Eagle AcquireCo. Each share was converted into the right to receive $210 in cash, and total consideration was approximately $55 billion. Nasdaq halted the stock after Tuesday’s close and has filed a Form 25 to delist it. EA intends to file a Form 15 terminating its reporting obligations on or around Aug. 14, according to an amended Schedule 13D that PIF filed Wednesday . Kirkland & Ellis, counsel to the consortium , described the transaction as the largest take-private investment in history. Stockholders approved the deal on Dec. 22, 2025. The $210 price represented a 24.8% premium to EA’s Sept. 25, 2025 closing price, the last full session before market speculation about a sale, according to EA’s proxy statement . The consortium’s agreement was announced in September 2025, as previously reported by The Esports Advocate . PIF did not take its money off the table. Its Schedule 13D amendment discloses that the fund contributed 24,807,932 shares, worth roughly $5.21 billion at the deal price, to an indirect parent of the acquiring entity in exchange for equity in that parent. The purchase was financed with $20 billion of committed debt, according to EA’s most recent quarterly report . First-lien term loans funded on the closing date, and the buyers had already issued secured and unsecured notes in April carrying coupons of 6.250% to 8.750%. EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately $7.5 billion in fiscal year 2026, the company said in its closing announcement . The buyer’s own capacity to write new checks has been questioned. In November 2025, The New York Times reported that PIF had run low on the cash needed for future investments, citing 11 people briefed on its operations and pointing to distressed projects including the NEOM development, as previously reported by The Esports Advocate . The EA agreement predated that reporting by two months. The ownership now reaches both sides of the esports value chain. PIF funds the Esports Foundation, renamed from the Esports World Cup Foundation by Saudi cabinet decision in February, as previously reported by The Esports Advocate . That foundation runs the Esports World Cup, underway in Paris through Aug. 23 with Apex Legends and EA Sports FC 26 among its titles. PIF also owns Savvy Games Group , which lists tournament operator ESL FACEIT Group among its business units. “Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF,” Turqi Alnowaiser, Deputy Governor and Head of International Investments at PIF, said in the closing announcement. Seven directors resigned at closing, and the filing names no replacements. More than 40 House Democrats urged the Federal Trade Commission to review the transaction in January , in a letter backed by the Communications Workers of America. All regulatory approvals were obtained by July 30. Still unknown are the consortium members’ respective stakes in the new owner, who sits on the surviving corporation’s board, the annual interest expense on the new capital structure, whether the Apex Legends Global Series and EA Sports FC Pro budgets and structures change under private ownership, and whether EA will be coordinated with or folded into Savvy Games Group’s operations. EA’s Form 15 will end its SEC reporting, leaving the noteholders’ indenture disclosures as the likely future source for any of it. For clubs, rights holders and sponsors, the change is one of counterparty: the publisher that licenses two Esports World Cup titles, the foundation that stages the event and the fund that finances both now sit inside a single ownership structure. The strategic question is whether a publisher carrying $20 billion of acquisition debt, owned by the same sovereign fund that pays for the circuit its titles compete on, still prices and governs those licences the way an independent one would. Tweet Share Share Share Share Share Send Read us often? Tell Google. Adding The Esports Advocate as a preferred source pushes our reporting higher in your own Search results — it changes nothing for anyone else. Add TEA as a preferred source → Tobias Seck Tobias Seck is a journalist and business analyst who spent more than seven years at The Esports Observer (TEO) as a business analyst. He was one of the first employees of the publication, having joined in 2015. In October 2018 he shifted to the role of business analyst and journalist, writing analysis and helping fellow TEO writers understand the world of finance as a supplemental editor when needed. He continued in that role when TEO was rolled into Sports Business Journal (SBJ), where he worked until February 2023. The Esports Advocate The Esports Advocate, your premier destination for in-depth and authoritative coverage of the esports business and finance landscape created to empower esports stakeholders with the knowledge and information needed to do business in the world of esports successfully. Search Search About TEA Terms of Service Privacy Statement Subscribe to our Newsletter Our Mission Statement Contact Us © 2023 - 2026 The Esports Advocate . All rights reserved. © 2023 - 2026 The Esports Advocate . All rights reserved.
Curated by Taleb Kabbara · Source: esportsadvocate.net