Saudi Arabia increases stake in Electronic Arts to 10%

The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) has been building a sizable stake in EA over the course of several years.

Image via Electronic Arts
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The Saudi Arabian government has made another major investment into Electronic Arts, buying up more stock and increasing its stake in the company. The latest investment in games from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), this latest stake gives Saudi Arabia a 10 percent stake in Electronic Arts overall.

The Saudi Arabian PIF stake increase in Electronic Arts was spotted in a recent SEC Filing, as reported by Seeking Alpha. Reportedly, in Q4 2022, the PIF bought up 8.8 million shares of EA stock, raising its overall share holdings from 16.01 million to 24.81 million. That’s enough to constitute a 10 percent stake in ownership of Electronic Arts overall. The PIF also grabbed further shares in Activision Blizzard, Take-Two, PayPal, and Adobe.

Saudi Arabia PIF logo
The Saudi Arabia PIF has been used to aggressively buy up stakes in tech, video game, and entertainment companies, including EA, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, and many more groups.
Source: Saudi Arabia PIF

The Saudi Arabian government has been aggressive in its gathering of shares in gaming, entertainment, and tech markets through the Public Investment Fund backed by the Saudi royal family. The fund aims to diversify the region away from oil and deeper into tech and entertainment. That has included building a 7 percent stake in Nintendo, an 8 percent stake in Embracer Group (which presides over publishers like THQ Nordic), and quite a bit more.

With the Saudi PIF already claiming it was putting $13 billion aside to acquire a major gaming dev late in 2022, we’re sure we haven’t seen the last of major investments out of the fund. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story for further updates.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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