EA is now a private company
EA is now a private company
EA 现已成为一家私有公司
The $55 billion deal has closed. 这笔 550 亿美元的交易已经完成。
Electronic Arts has officially become a private company. Last September, EA announced that an investor group led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners would be taking the company private in a $55 billion deal, and on Tuesday, EA said the deal successfully closed. The PIF will reportedly own 93.4 percent of the new company. Electronic Arts 已正式成为一家私有公司。去年 9 月，EA 宣布由沙特阿拉伯公共投资基金 (PIF)、银湖资本 (Silver Lake) 和 Affinity Partners 牵头的投资者财团将以 550 亿美元的价格将该公司私有化。周二，EA 表示该交易已成功完成。据报道，PIF 将持有这家新公司 93.4% 的股份。
The deal includes $20 billion of debt financing — making it the largest leveraged buyout ever — which could mean big changes at EA to justify the deal. As of late, EA has been focusing heavily on its big tentpole franchises, including things like Battlefield, its sports games like EA Sports FC and Madden NFL, and The Sims. Given the stakes of the deal, it seems likely that EA will depend more on bankable releases rather than experimenting on smaller games — a strategy that many of the industry’s biggest publishers, including Ubisoft and Xbox, are shifting toward as well. 这笔交易包含 200 亿美元的债务融资，使其成为有史以来规模最大的杠杆收购，这可能意味着 EA 将进行重大变革以证明该交易的合理性。近来，EA 一直高度专注于其大型支柱系列游戏，包括《战地》(Battlefield)、《EA Sports FC》和《Madden NFL》等体育游戏，以及《模拟人生》(The Sims)。鉴于这笔交易的赌注，EA 很可能会更多地依赖有保障的发行项目，而不是在小型游戏上进行实验——这也是包括育碧 (Ubisoft) 和 Xbox 在内的许多行业巨头正在转向的策略。
“As we begin this next chapter, I’m more optimistic than ever about what we’ll create together,” CEO Andrew Wilson said in a message to staff. “The opportunities ahead are extraordinary, and they’ll be brought to life by our creativity, our ambition, and our belief in what’s possible.” “当我们开启这一新篇章时，我对我们将共同创造的成果比以往任何时候都更加乐观，”首席执行官 Andrew Wilson 在给员工的信息中说道。“未来的机遇非同寻常，它们将通过我们的创造力、雄心以及对可能性的信念变为现实。”
The deal for EA follows other major video game industry acquisitions in recent years, including Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard, its $7.5 billion deal for Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media, and Take-Two’s $12.7 billion deal for Zynga. EA 的这笔交易紧随近年来游戏行业的其他重大收购案之后，包括微软以 687 亿美元收购动视暴雪 (Activision Blizzard)、以 75 亿美元收购 Bethesda Softworks 母公司 ZeniMax Media，以及 Take-Two 以 127 亿美元收购 Zynga。