Jared Kushner, Saudi Arabia Team Up To Buy Video Game Developer For $55 Billion
HuffPost
The Electronic Arts deal is the largest leveraged buyout in history.
Electronic Arts, the maker of video games like “Madden NFL,” “Battlefield,” and “The Sims,” is being acquired for $52.5 billion in what could become the largest buyout ever funded by private equity firms.
Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, and Affinity Partners will pay EA’s stockholders $210 per share. Affinity Partners is run by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The deal is valued at $55 billion if AE’s debt is included, far exceeding the $32 billion price tag to take Texas utility TXU private in 2007, which had shattered records for leveraged buyouts.
PIF, which was currently the largest insider stakeholder in Electronic Arts, will be rolling over its existing 9.9% investment in the company.
The commitment to the massive deal is inline with recent activity in the gaming sector by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, wrote Andrew Marok of Raymond James.
