Electronic Arts, the video game maker of “Madden NFL,” “The Sims,” and other popular titles, is being acquired and taken private for $55 billion

ByMICHAEL LIEDTKE AP technology writer

Electronic Arts, maker of video games like “Madden NFL” and “The Sims,” is being acquired for $55 billion, the most expensive levered buyout in history.

Under the terms of the deal announced Monday, the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF and Affinity Partners will pay EA’s stockholders $210 per share. Affinity Partners is a private equity firm run by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The deal was anticipated, with leaks of discussions coming out at the end of last week in a report by The Wall Street Journal. The total value of the deal eclipses the $32 billion price paid to take Texas utility TXU private in 2007.

If the transaction closes as anticipated, it will end EA’s 36-year history as a publicly traded company that began with its shares ending its first day of trading at a split-adjusted 52 cents.

The IPO came seven years after EA was founded by former Apple employee William “Trip” Hawkins, who began playing analog versions of baseball and football made by “Strat-O-Matic” as a teenager during the 1960s.

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