Saubi Arabia buying up EA shares is a bigger deal than you think
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has increased the number of EA shares it owns by roughly 55%. This is the latest in an ongoing streak of international investment by the nation’s wealth fund, which has been throwing more and more money at both the Western and Eastern games industry for years now.
This information was first reported on by Seeking Alpha, which discovered that the national fund had purchased a significant number of additional shares in EA in the final quarter of 2022. The fund now owns 24.81 million EA shares. As EA currently has 276 million outstanding shares as of May this year, Saudi Arabia is inching closer to a 10% ownership of the company.
When it comes to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the money keeps on coming. As of April, the country had invested upwards of $38 billion dollars in the industry according to Bloomberg, spread across investment in studios, esports, and other miscellaneous projects. This includes many studios you’ll likely know – including Capcom, and SNK! The latter of which has over 96% of its shares owned by Saudi Arabia, a fact which the studio believes will not affect on the games it makes.