After Buying EA for $55 Billion (and Closing BioWare), Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s PIF Are Now Trying to Acquire Game Engine Maker Unity
The two biggest parties in the consortium that bought Electronic Arts for $55 billion, Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia's PIF, are back in business and trying to acquire Unity. The big news comes from Reuters, which claims that Silver Lake and PIF approached Unity's management about the possibility in recent weeks. Silver Lake and PIF reportedly evaluated Unity at about $25 billion, though that was before Unity's latest…
- 0-20%: Unlikely - Lacks credible sources
- 21-40%: Questionable - Some concerns remain
- 41-60%: Plausible - Reasonable evidence
- 61-80%: Probable - Strong evidence
- 81-100%: Highly Likely - Multiple reliable sources
80%
Probable
The two biggest parties in the consortium that bought Electronic Arts for $55 billion, Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia's PIF, are back in business and trying to acquire Unity.
The big news comes from Reuters, which claims that Silver Lake and PIF approached Unity's management about the possibility in recent weeks. Silver Lake and PIF reportedly evaluated Unity at about $25 billion, though that was before Unity's latest earnings report, which lifted its market capitalization to around $21.5 billion.
Reuters adds that since the consortium approached Unity, the company, originally founded in Denmark and now headquartered in San Francisco, has been evaluating its options with the help of an investment bank. No deal has been reached so far, anyway.
Unity was founded twenty-two years ago and is best known for its Unity engine, a popular cross-platform game engine. In fact, there are more games made with this engine (especially on mobile) than on Epic's Unreal Engine, although the latter is generally preferred by triple-A developers for its more advanced rendering capabilities. Unity used to be an indie favorite, but that partly changed after 2023's runtime fee fiasco, which led to former CEO John Riccitiello's eventual resignation. Recently, Unity has gone all-in on AI integration, though Epic is doing the same with Unreal.
As mentioned earlier, Silver Lake and PIF recently acquired Electronic Arts, with the help of a third investor, Affinity Partners. However, Affinity Partners only holds 1.1% of the company, while Silver Lake owns 5.5% of EA and PIF owns the rest (93.4%). Silver Lake actually invested in Unity back in 2017 and already owns 8% of the company's shares, which would certainly facilitate a deal.
The gaming community watches with wariness, especially after their acquisition of EA ostensibly led to the closure of historic developer BioWare, a massive blow to RPG fans worldwide.
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