Friday, March 29

EA is looking for a company interested in a sale or merger, according to Puck. These are the companies you have already spoken to


The video game sector is experiencing times of change. 2022 began with Microsoft’s decision to acquire Activision Blizzard for more than 68,000 million dollars and has been advancing with other operations, such as the purchase of Bungie by Sony or the recent movement of Embracer Group to achieve important titles, such as ‘Tomb Raider’ or ‘Deus Ex’. We now know that the list of changes and transactions in the first months of the year could have been even larger. The reason: NBCUniversal and Electronic Arts (AE) would have been close to merge.

The information is advanced by Puck, a news portal on movements in Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. As specified, Comcast and EA, responsible for sagas as successful as ‘Battlefield’, ‘FIFA’ or ‘Mass Effect’, held talks to explore a possible merger between the video game firm and NBCUniversal’s film and TV assets. Following the purchase of Activision it would have been Comcast CEO Brian Roberts who turned to his EA counterpart Andrew Wilson.

The deal would see Roberts take majority control of the merged entity while Wilson would assume the role of chief executive. Jeff Shell, who holds that role at NBCUniversal, would be assigned another role at Comcast. Always according to Puck, who claims to have confirmed the data with four different sources, the conversations became so advanced involving managers, lawyers and bankers, who negotiated the terms for weeks.

sum of forces

Both companies would not have reached an agreement on price and structure. Result: the proposal failed in the last month. EA has declined to comment on the news, saying only that it is not commenting “on rumors and speculation related to mergers and acquisitions.”

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NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, has a broad portfolio of assets including Universal Studios, distributor of major blockbusters such as “Jurassic World.” If successful, the merger would give it access to EA’s catalog of titles.

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The American telecommunications giant Comcast would not have been however neither the first nor the only company with which EA has maintained contacts. Puck assures in fact that the company has been persistent in the search for a sale, an effort that would have been reinforced by the operation of Microsoft and Activision. Other sources he cites point out that his interest would actually focus on a merger deal that would keep Wilson at the forefront.

The American media goes even further and assures that over the last few years EA and Wilson have had conversations with other possible interested parties, among which Apple, Amazon and Disney would be included, with which interesting synergies would be opened with the union of the ESPN channel. It does not clarify, yes, in which cases an acquisition would have been tested and in which the merger.

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