Saudi Arabia‘s Public Investment Fund is weighing a merger between Electronic Arts and Savvy Games Group, its other major gaming investment vehicle. That is according to a Bloomberg report cited by PC Gamer. The PIF completed its majority acquisition of EA in August.
An EA Savvy Games merger would combine two of the fund’s largest gaming assets into a single company. No final decision has been made, Bloomberg’s sources say.
The Public Investment Fund is likely to wait until it closes its $6 billion acquisition of Moonton. Moonton is the Chinese mobile game developer behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. That deal was announced in March and still needs regulatory clearance in several countries.
Any combination of EA and Savvy would also have to clear its own regulatory review before it could proceed. Two deals of this size moving through approval at once would stretch the PIF’s legal and compliance teams across several jurisdictions.
The buyout that set up this possibility
The PIF did not acquire EA on its own. The takeover closed as part of a consortium that also included Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. Affinity Partners is the investment firm run by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
The deal valued EA at roughly $55 billion and ranks among the largest leveraged buyouts on record. A buyout of that size relies heavily on borrowed money, and EA is now the one carrying that debt.
The company took on roughly $18 billion in loans to finance the transaction. That burden shapes nearly every decision EA’s new owners make about the business, including whether folding the studio into Savvy Games Group makes financial sense.
Savvy’s broader stake in the industry
Savvy Games Group was set up in 2021 as the PIF’s dedicated operator in the games business, separate from the fund’s public market holdings. Around the same period, the PIF also built minority stakes in publishers including Nintendo, Take-Two Interactive, and Activision Blizzard through its broader equity portfolio.
Savvy itself has focused on outright acquisitions rather than passive stakes. It bought esports organizers ESL Gaming and FACEIT and later merged them into ESL FACEIT Group. It also paid roughly $4.9 billion for Scopely in 2023.
Moonton is next in line to join that roster, and EA would be by far the largest addition yet. No other Savvy deal has approached the scale of a company that generates billions in annual revenue from console and PC franchises alone.
Why an EA Savvy Games merger fits the PIF’s strategy
EA’s console and PC catalog includes EA Sports FC, Battlefield, and The Sims. Combining that lineup with Savvy’s esports and mobile businesses would give the PIF a single company spanning nearly every corner of the games industry.
That kind of consolidation would simplify how the fund manages its gaming portfolio. It could also cut down on the overlap between EA and Savvy’s existing operations, from publishing infrastructure to corporate staff.
A combined company would also put the PIF in a stronger position when negotiating with platform holders and distribution partners. A single entity spanning mobile, PC, console, and esports carries more weight than several smaller ones bargaining on their own.
EA’s debt load raises the stakes for layoffs
The financial pressure behind a potential merger is tied directly to that debt. EA employees are already bracing for cuts as the company works out how to manage the $18 billion loaded onto its books.
Mergers typically eliminate duplicated roles and services to cut costs. Combining EA with Savvy Games Group could mean further layoffs across both organizations as redundant positions are consolidated.
Those cuts would come on top of reductions EA was already expected to make as a standalone company. For staff on both sides, a merger announcement would likely raise as many questions about job security as it would about strategy.
Political ties could shape regulatory scrutiny
Any deal this size would draw attention from antitrust regulators in multiple countries. The ownership structure adds another layer of complexity.
The PIF is chaired by Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. Intelligence agencies have linked bin Salman to the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A merged EA and Savvy Games Group would concentrate a large share of the global games industry under a single government-owned fund.
Bin Salman maintains a close relationship with Trump. Kushner helped arrange the PIF’s original acquisition of EA through Affinity Partners’ role in the buyout consortium. Those political ties could influence how US regulators handle a future EA Savvy Games merger.
The comparison regulators are likely to draw is Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. That deal drew a lengthy fight from the US Federal Trade Commission and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority before closing anyway.
A merged EA and Savvy would likely face review from those same agencies, along with antitrust regulators in the European Union. The PIF’s political connections may prove just as useful if the process reaches similar scrutiny.
What happens next
Electronic Arts declined to comment on the report. PC Gamer says it has also reached out to the Public Investment Fund and Savvy Games Group for comment.
For now, the Moonton acquisition remains the more immediate item on the PIF’s calendar. Any move to combine EA and Savvy will likely stay on hold until that $6 billion purchase closes.
What comes after will depend on how regulators in multiple markets respond once talks move forward. It will also depend on how much appetite EA’s new owners have for another round of integration.
EA is still absorbing its own change in ownership and the debt repayment schedule that came with the buyout. A second, larger integration so soon after the first would add more disruption on top of that adjustment.
The PIF will have to weigh how quickly it wants to consolidate its gaming holdings against how much upheaval EA’s studios can absorb while still shipping games on schedule. Neither Bloomberg nor PC Gamer reported a timeline for when a decision might be made.