After a period of speculation, the deal is now definitely finalized. A collection of venture capital companies, including Silver Lake, Affinity Partners and the state-owned Saudi development fund PIF are behind it. The price tag, $210 per share, a total of approximately 500 billion kronor, makes the deal the largest to date when it comes to buyouts from the stock exchange, writes the news agency Bloomberg.
This also means a premium of 25 percent compared to the stock's closing price on September 25.
Electronic Arts, which was founded in 1982, is one of the world's largest companies in the gaming industry, known for its sports games, including EA Sports FC (formerly Fifa) but also The Sims. The company also owns the Swedish game developer Dice, which makes the "Battlefield" series, which will be released in a new version next month.
Despite being behind four of the ten best-selling games last year, according to the market research company Circana, the company has, like the industry as a whole, experienced challenges as consumers to a greater extent than before choose free games over paying for new titles. Electronic Arts has also been forced to make cutbacks on several occasions.
Venture capital company Silver Lake has a history of investing in the tech sector, CNBC has recently reported that Silver Lake will also invest in Tiktok's American operations.
The Saudi development fund PIF, which was previously a minority owner of Electronic Arts, was noted earlier this year when it bought the game section of the developer Niantic, which is behind Pokémon Go.
