The Daily Populous Saturday September 27th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by renome

Shares of Electronic Arts closed up 15% on Friday following a report in the Wall Street Journal that the video game company is nearing a roughly $50 billion deal to go private.

Investors including Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Silver Lake could announce the deal as soon as next week, the report said. PIF has been pouring billions of dollars into gaming, purchasing the makers of Pokemon Go and the parent company behind Monopoly Go, for example.

Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners is another participating investor, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

The deal would be the largest leveraged buyout in Wall Street history, surpassing the agreement to take TXU Energy private for about $45 billion in 2007. A leveraged buyout (LBO) is when debt is predominately used for an acquisition, a tactic traditionally used by private equity firms or activists.

EA makes popular video games including The Sims, Madden NFL, the soccer game FC, formerly known as FIFA. With Friday's gains, the stock is up about 32% for the year.

EA did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

WATCH: CNBC's interview with EA CEO Andrew Wilson

Acherstrom on September 27th, 2025 at 02:08 UTC »

One more reason to hate ea. lol.

TAJack1 on September 27th, 2025 at 01:40 UTC »

Oil money.

Childofthesea13 on September 26th, 2025 at 20:17 UTC »

Ugh Saudi Arabia sticking their fingers where they don’t belong again. Gross