EA Set to Exit Nasdaq in Record $55B Saudi Buyout

Electronic Arts (EA ) is about to end nearly four decades as a public company. In a securities filing dated July 30, 2026, the publisher said every regulatory approval needed to complete its roughly $55 billion sale to a Saudi-led investor group is now in place, and that it expects the transaction to close on or about the end of trading on August 4, 2026. Once it does, EA will drop off the Nasdaq and complete the largest leveraged buyout on record.

The filing states plainly that “all regulatory approvals required to complete the Merger have been obtained,” leaving only the usual closing conditions between the company and its new owners. EA did not say which clearance landed last, but the review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the panel that screens foreign takeovers of US firms for national-security risk, had been the deal’s final major hurdle. European regulators had already signed off: the European Commission cleared the merger on competition grounds on July 23, 2026, and separately examined whether the consortium’s Saudi state backing gave it an unfair edge in the market.

The buyers are a group led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, alongside private equity firm Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, the investment firm founded by Jared Kushner. Under the agreement EA announced on September 29, 2025, shareholders receive $210 a share in cash, a 25% premium to EA’s price before the talks surfaced, valuing the company at about $55 billion. PIF, which already owned close to 10% of EA, is rolling that stake into the deal and will come out with control of roughly 93% of the publisher; Silver Lake and Affinity split what remains.

The debt behind the deal

For most of its history, EA has been one of gaming’s steadiest cash machines, carrying almost no debt. That ends at close. The consortium is financing the takeover with about $36 billion in equity and $20 billion in loans arranged by JPMorgan Chase, and that borrowing lands on EA’s own books. The result is a private EA far more leveraged than the public one it replaces, with debt to service before a single new game ships.

That leverage is exactly what drew political resistance in Washington. US lawmakers pressed the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize the deal, warning that its debt gives the new owners strong incentives to cut costs through layoffs, offshoring, or studio closures. The worry has not been abstract. EA has cut staff repeatedly during the review, from customer-support and safety teams to workers at the studios behind Battlefield 6, even as that shooter delivered one of the company’s strongest launches in years.

What changes under Saudi ownership

Day to day, little shifts at first. EA keeps its headquarters in Redwood City, California, and Andrew Wilson stays chief executive. The deeper change is control: a US publisher that holds behavioral, spending, and chat data on hundreds of millions of players will answer to a foreign government’s investment fund. That was the heart of the CFIUS review, and of a separate warning from senators about foreign access to player information. The Saudi role has drawn other criticism too, including from creators who make content for The Sims and objected to the kingdom’s record on LGBTQ rights.

Going private also loosens the quarterly earnings pressure that public shareholders impose, giving management room to invest on a longer horizon. Whether that freedom is worth the cost of the new debt is the wager PIF and its partners are making.

A record buyout in a thinning public market

The scale is historic on its own terms. At about $55 billion, the EA purchase is the largest leveraged buyout ever completed, ahead of the $45 billion TXU deal from 2007, and the second-largest acquisition in gaming, behind Microsoft’s roughly $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard (ATVI ). EA itself has called it the largest all-cash, sponsor-backed take-private in history.

The close also pulls another major publisher out of public markets, extending a run of gaming consolidation that has made buyouts and take-privates the busiest they have been in years. EA missed its original June 30, 2026 target as the reviews dragged on and the deadline was pushed back. With the approvals finally secured, its shares are set to stop trading once the merger closes, handing one of the industry’s largest catalogs of franchises, from EA Sports FC and Madden to The Sims and Battlefield, to its new owners.