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Notes -
That's a lot of debt. EA has about $2 billion in annual operating cashflow (which will drop after the take-private because some of the $600 million or so in stock-based compensation will become cash bonuses) of which $250 million a year is being reinvested in the business (excluding major acquisitions, which EA seem to be dependent on). The reported profit after tax is $1.1 billion, with depreciation most of the difference. At a low-end LBO interest rate of SOFR+200, the interest on $20 billion in debt is going to $1.2 billion per year.
Absent another pandemic or other dramatic increase in revenue with minimal investment required to deliver it, EA are going to have to eat their seed corn in order to pay the interest. I wonder if JP Morgan are doing a favour for the Saudis by lending slightly too much on this one.
Sports franchise revenue (4 of the top 10 games sold every year are EA sports games, pretty much every year) is probably predictable enough to make them comfortable. This will look stupid eventually for the Saudis and Silver Lake, but for now I don’t think it’s a comically bad loan.
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