Saudi Arabia's $55 Billion Bet on EA Is About to Close

The largest leveraged buyout in history is days away from clearing its final regulatory hurdle.

A consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) — which also includes Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners and private equity firm Silver Lake — is expected to receive European Commission approval for its $55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts by July 30, according to Reuters. The deal, announced in September 2025, would take the Madden and FIFA game publisher private at $210 per share, a 25 percent premium over EA’s last unaffected closing price of $168.32.

This isn’t a casual investment. The consortium is buying all of EA in an all-cash deal, with JP Morgan committing $20 billion in debt financing. PIF, which already owned roughly 9.9 percent of EA, will roll its existing stake into the new structure. The transaction represents the single biggest leveraged buyout ever attempted.

The EU’s competition watchdog is reviewing the deal under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, a framework designed to prevent non-EU countries from using unfair subsidies to snap up European competitors. The preliminary review closes on July 30, and the deal is also expected to secure unconditional approval under standard merger rules by July 22. The European Commission, PIF, and EA have all declined to comment.

The speed of this approval matters. Other Middle Eastern-linked transactions — Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC buying German chemicals firm Covestro, and UAE telecom group e& acquiring Czech company PPF — slogged through lengthy investigations and remedial concessions before getting the green light. The EA deal appears to be moving faster.

For PIF, this is part of a much larger play. Saudi Arabia wants to become a global hub for gaming and esports. PIF first bought into EA in February 2021 with an $1.1 billion stake. In 2022, it created Savvy Gaming Group to handle its gaming and esports investments. By March 2026, roughly $12 billion in PIF’s gaming-related holdings had been transferred to Savvy’s management. The EA acquisition fits squarely into a broader strategy that includes the $37 billion acquisition of a stake in Nintendo and investments in Activision Blizzard, Take-Two, and Ubisoft.

The message from Riyadh is clear: gaming isn’t just entertainment — it’s the next pillar of a post-oil economy.