According to recent Bloomberg reports PIF executives are considering merging EA into one of the largest gaming companies in existence. EA and Savvy didn't respond yet. Nothing is decided for now and nothing happens before Savvy closes its 6 billion dollar Moonton acquisition.
PIF spent $55 billion on EA and roughly $38 billion building Savvy, which seperate on paper. Sources say the EA purchase raised real questions about how that was meant to work. Ward's departure twelve days after closing looks less coincidental now.
Combined this Entity would hold EA Sports FC, Madden, Battlefield, APEX and The Sims alongside Scopely (Monopoly Go, Pokémon Go), ESL FACEIT Group and Moonton's Mobile Legends. Console, PC, mobile and esports in one company, which nobody currently spans this wide. There's logic beyond EA cancelled the mobile titles it bought through the 2.1 billion dollar Glu deal and never cracked the category. Savvy is almost entirely mobile.
The regulatory question
Coverage is split on whether this needs approval at all.
Merging two companies the same owner already controls may not constitute a change of control, in which case there may be nothing to file. The complication is EA's remaining ownership: Silver Lake and Affinity Partners hold the 6.6% PIF doesn't, and minority rights over budgets or strategy can amount to joint control in Brussels. If they do, control changes and the Commission looks again.
Brussels cleared the EA takeover six weeks ago on competition and foreign subsidy grounds.
EA is carrying 20 billion in new debt from the buyout. Mergers this size consolidate overlapping functions, and sources have spent a year telling trade press that layoffs and studio closures are the likely route to servicing it.
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