Multiple reports indicate that video game behemoth Electronic Arts (EA) is in talks to go private with a valuation of $50 billion.
First, The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Thomas claimed, “Videogame maker Electronic Arts is nearing a deal to go to private in what would likely be the largest leveraged buyout of all time, according to people familiar with the matter.”
This was seemingly confirmed by Reuters who reported that a source shared that the group of investors looking to take the company private include private equity firm Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Following this report shares of EA surged over 14% to $193.35.
At the end of July, the company indicated that it had a strong start to its first quarter, which ended on June 30th. The company’s CFO Stuart Canfield said, “We exceeded the high end of our guidance in Q1 highlighting the resilience of our live services and the breadth of our portfolio. With strong fundamentals and a robust pipeline ahead, we remain confident in our full-year guidance and long-term margin framework.”
The company reported its net bookings came in at $1.298 billion for the quarter and its net revenue was $1.671 billion. Furthermore, the company shared that it saw “better-than-expected contributions from many areas in our portfolio including EA SPORTS, Apex Legends, and catalog.”
However, despite the first quarter exceeding expectations the company did not change their yearly outlook and still expect net bookings to be between $7.6 billion and $8 billion and net revenue to be between $7.1 billion and $7.5 billion.
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