Who Really Owns EA Now?

Hi, and welcome to a new edition of The Daily Dealflow — the 5-minute briefing that gives you clear context on capital flows and market-moving trends across the Americas, from Silicon Valley to Buenos Aires. Let's dive in.

🏆 Deal of the Day

Electronic Arts' $55 billion take-private buyout — the largest leveraged buyout in history — officially closed today, with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners taking the video-game giant off public markets for $210 per share in cash, per The Guardian.

Kushner's role goes well beyond Affinity Partners' modest 1.1% slice of the cap table. Bloomberg reported that Donald Trump's son-in-law personally brokered the introduction between EA and PIF and stayed a central figure in the negotiations for months, reportedly pushing the deal forward when momentum stalled mid-year. That has pulled the transaction into a political controversy that has little to do with gaming: House Judiciary Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, have opened scrutiny into Kushner's dual role as a Trump administration Middle East envoy and a private-equity manager collecting billions from the same Gulf sovereign funds he negotiates with, calling it a "glaring and incurable conflict of interest," per Kotaku.

Why This?: It's the biggest live test yet of how much leverage U.S. credit markets can absorb, with $20B in new JPMorgan-arranged debt setting the tone for the next wave of American mega-buyouts.

Positive Context:

• EA's operating cash flow reached $2.55B in FY26 with gross margins near 79%, giving the sponsors real cash flow to service the new debt.
• The $210 offer sat at a 25% premium to EA's unaffected price, and CFIUS cleared the deal weeks ahead of its September deadline.

Yes, but:

• The $20B debt load pushes pro forma leverage to roughly 7–11x, and Moody's and S&P both placed EA's ratings on review for multi-notch downgrades.
• EA just dethroned TXU's $45B 2007 buyout as the largest LBO ever — and TXU remains the largest LBO bankruptcy on record.

Zoom in: PIF alone will hold about 93.4% of the newly private EA, with Silver Lake at 5.5% and Affinity Partners rounding out the cap table at just 1.1%.

“EA has created stories, characters, and communities that have become part of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people,” Kushner said. “We’re excited to support the company as it continues to reach new audiences, inspire the next generation of creators, and expand the ways people around the world connect through play.” - The Guardian.

💰 Venture Capital

Freehand (US) – $75M, seed round, autonomous AI agents that manage supply-chain spend and back-office workflows for Fortune 500 enterprises.

Decade (Brazil) – $85M, seed round, AI-powered wealth advisory platform pairing clients with human financial advisors – LatamList.

Mariana Minerals (US) – $310M, Series B, software-first critical minerals mining and refining platform.

Jusfy (Brazil) – $15M, Series A, AI-powered legal workflow platform with embedded fintech for lawyers – Startuplinks.

P-1 AI (US) – $50M, Series A, AI engineer platform for hardware and industrial teams across mechanical, electrical, thermal and systems design.

Einship (Brazil) – $1M, seed round, AI-native market intelligence and operations platform for importers and exporters – LatamList.

Horizon3 (US) – $250M, Series E ($2B valuation), autonomous penetration-testing platform helping companies detect and fix AI-era cyber threats.

🏛️ Private Equity

Axum Capital Partners (US) agreed to buy a control stake in performance hydration brand Barcode, in partnership with NBA player Victor Wembanyama.

TecsPal (Uruguay) – acquisition, 80% sale to Vensure Employer Solutions, IT asset management platform for distributed teams and remote workforces – Startups Latam.

Deel (US) acquired Clarity, an NYC-based deepfake security startup that had raised over $300m from Walden Catalyst Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fusion, Secret Chord Ventures, Ascend Ventures, and Flying Fish Partners.

Trinity Hunt Partners (US) acquired Northline Industrial, a Redford, Mich.-based industrial aftermarket MRO.

📈 Public & Capital Markets

SpaceX (US) – $7.8B Q2 revenue, first earnings report as a public company, beat analyst estimates and sent the stock up 9.4% – Bloomberg.

YPF (Argentina) – 10-for-1 stock split effective today, cutting nominal share value to widen access for retail investors – El Cronista.

Infinx (US), a health care RCM company backed by KKR and Norwest Venture Partners, is weighing an India IPO that could raise up to $300m, per Bloomberg.

🧑‍💻 The Directory

Here you’ll find a curated list of leaders making notable moves across investment, AI, and tech companies.

• Francis deSouza just announced he’ll be the new CEO of Scale AI, starting August 10th (prev Google Cloud COO, CEO Illumina).
• Alex LaPolice joined Lightspeed as an NYC-based partner. He previously was with Summit Partners.
• Bianca Pinasco just joined Google DeepMind’s product team to help build the future of Gemini (prev McKinsey, Stanford GSB).
• Avi Upreti just stepped up as the new MD of Investment Banking at Hebbia.
• Evan Bacon just joined SpaceXAI’s engineering team (prev Head of AI at Expo for almost 9 years).
• Dean Ball just joined OpenAI as Head of Strategic Futures, after advising the White House on AI policy.
• Jessica Chew just left JP Morgan Chase after 7 years (most recent role was VP of Startup Banking).
• David Vélez (founder/CEO of Nubank) and Robin Vince (CEO of BNY) just joined OpenAI’s board.
• Dylan Tornay joined Evercore as a senior managing director of equity capital markets. He most recently was with Citi.

Are you making a move? Send us a DM here to be featured in next Wednesday’s edition.

ICYMI

• Meet the college kids running a $12 million real estate investment business.
• The father of the 401(k) says the retirement plan doesn’t work for many middle- and lower-income Americans.
• Wells Fargo is planning to roll out tokenized deposits for corporate and commercial clients, as the bank attempts to sneak ahead of the competition.
• Bending Spoons, the Italian tech conglomerate that bought AOL and Vimeo, acquired spreadsheet platform Airtable for $1.28 billion yesterday in its first deal since going public last month.
• Naoero, the Pacific island nation of 12k residents (and the world’s third-smallest country), just officially changed its name from Nauru to restore the spelling and pronunciation used in its native language after decades of going by a name that’s easier for foreigners to say.

See you tomorrow,

Jose Kont
The human behind The Investor Society.

Submit a deal for The Daily Dealflow newsletter via DM here on LinkedIn.