A new report has emerged which reveals exactly how much of EA the Saudi Public Investment Fund will own after the recent acquisition goes through, and it turns out it’s not an insignificant percentage.
According to a filing seen by the Wall Street Journal (via Game Developer), the Saudi PIF will own 93.4% of EA following the buyout, with fellow purchasers Silver Lake and Affinity Partners scoring 5.5% and 1.1% of the publisher respectively.
In case you need a reminder, it was announced back in September that EA would go private thanks to a buyout from the three aforementioned companies, who acquired the storied publisher for an eye-watering $55 billion (although that’s still not the most expensive gaming acquisition in history, of course).
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After the acquisition was announced, EA was quick to assuage fears that the new buyers would affect its creative direction, with the publisher claiming that it will «maintain creative control» after the purchase and that its «track record of creative freedom and player-first values will remain intact».
However, concerns remain around the involvement of the Saudi PIF in EA’s business, especially given that its chair, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has presided over a number of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.
Still, EA isn’t the only pie in which the Saudi PIF has its proverbial fingers. Others include Niantic, the developer behind Pokemon Go, as well as Nintendo, Capcom, and the Embracer Group, to name but a few.
There don’t appear to have been any major changes in creative direction among those companies since the PIF invested in them, but since the fund has a majority stake in EA, things could well be a little different in this case.
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EA will, however, likely be hoping that the new investment can boost its financial performance a little, especially given the underperformance of some of the studio’s biggest titles recently. Stay tuned for more on this.
