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(Jakub Porzycki/Getty Images)
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Electronic Arts set to go private in $55 billion deal — the latest in a long line of disappearing stocks

The “Madden” maker is set to join a growing group of listed companies that are deciding to drop out of exchanges.

Claire Yubin Oh

This morning, video game maker Electronic Arts confirmed that it will be taken private by a consortium including Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund, along with private equity firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners, in a deal that would value the company at some $55 billion, roughly 25% more than what the company was worth before deal rumors started circling last week.

The deal marks the largest take-private transaction in US history, topping the $45 billion buyout of Texas utility group TXU in 2007. That’s quite a record considering the rise of take-private deals more generally — a trend that’s exploded since 2012 in both count and volume. Per data from Bloomberg, last year saw a whopping 173 deals take stocks off the market, transactions worth some ~$289 billion and change.

More companies are going private
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Private party

Aided by a private markets capital pool that increasingly rivals its public cousin, the swelling dealmaking market is contributing to a broader trend: the slow decline of public markets.

Indeed, many high-profile startups like SpaceX and OpenAI have completely bypassed the hassle of public markets (like quarterly reporting, *cough*), finding no problem raising tens of billions of dollars for their cash-hungry operations.

The combined effect of fewer IPOs and a rise in take-private deals: there are now only half the number of public companies that were listed in the US in 1996, with just 4,010 public equities as of last year.

Thousands of stocks have disappeared
Sherwood News

Related reading: Where did all the stocks go?

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Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

Intel Earnings Researchers

Wall Street analysts see some issues with Intel’s earnings

Even with the US government as a partial owner, Intel’s turnaround has a long way to go.

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Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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