EA's interest bill was $53m. The buyout notes cost $427m.

In the year to 31 March 2026, Electronic Arts paid $53 million of interest. It carried $1,486 million of senior notes, a revolving credit facility it had not drawn, and $2,288 million of cash.

The notes that paid for the company carry $427 million of coupon a year, on the dollar tranches alone.

Electronic Arts does not owe them. It guarantees them.

What closed, and for how much

On 4 August 2026, Oak-Eagle MergerCo merged into Electronic Arts, 310 days after the merger agreement was signed. The buyer is a consortium of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, private funds affiliated with Silver Lake, and private funds affiliated with Affinity Partners.

Each share became the right to receive $210 in cash. Vested options were cashed out for the spread; vested restricted stock units and those held by non-employee directors were paid the same $210; unvested units became restricted cash awards on the same schedule, with unfinished performance periods deemed earned at the greater of target and actual.

Coverage of the deal put it at $55 billion. We could not tie that figure to a filing. What the filings support is this:

252,387,410 shares  ×  $210  =  $53.00bn

The stack

The closing 8-K lists the financing in one place, which is unusual and useful.

That is $14,750 million of dollar debt plus €2,805 million, excluding the undrawn revolver. No exchange rate is applied anywhere in this article, so no combined figure appears.

Against the $53.00bn of cash paid for the stock, the dollar debt is 27.8%. The rest came from what the filing calls “the equity contributions from funds affiliated with the Consortium and cash on hand.” This is a large cheque with leverage attached, not a thin-equity buyout.

Set against what EA carried before, though, the change is total. Its senior notes stood at $1,486 million on 30 June 2026. The dollar debt alone is 9.9 times that.

What the coupons cost

Only the notes can be priced from this filing. The term loans float and the 8-K does not disclose their margins — it says the agreement contains provisions “customary for facilities of this type.” So the figure below is a floor, not the interest bill.

$2,875m  ×  7.250%  =  $208.44m
$2,500m  ×  8.750%  =  $218.75m
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$427.19m      plus  EUR 1,080m × 6.250% = EUR 67.50m

Two comparisons make that number mean something, and both come from EA’s own last annual report.

Against what EA used to pay: 8.1 times. Interest expense was $53 million in the year to 31 March 2026.

Against what EA earns: 36.8% of operating income. EA reported $1,162 million of operating income on $7,531 million of revenue — a 15.4% margin — and $887 million of net income.

The coupon does not land on EA’s income statement — the notes are Parent’s. But the guarantee means the cash that services them can only come from one place.

The money was raised four months early

The notes were issued on 8 April 2026 and interest accrues from that date. The merger closed on 4 August. That is 118 days during which the coupon ran on money that could not yet be spent — about $138 million of accrued interest on the dollar tranches before the company changed hands.

Pre-funding an acquisition is ordinary; Baker Hughes did the same thing this summer, holding bond proceeds for four months before its purchase of Chart Industries closed, and terminated a $14.9 billion bridge it never drew. The difference is the meter. Baker Hughes was carrying investment-grade paper. This carry runs at 7.250% and 8.750%.

What the price says

The same market, the same season, three very different costs of money — and all three are in filings we have read.

The unsecured tranche prices 3.30 percentage points above Alphabet’s ten-year and the secured tranche 1.80 points above it. Both are secured or guaranteed by a business with a 15.4% operating margin and $7.5 billion of revenue — a profitable company, priced as a leveraged one, because that is what the capital structure now is.

The redemption terms say the same thing in a different register. Before 1 July 2029 the issuer may redeem up to 40% of each series with proceeds from an equity offering at 107.250%, 106.250% and 108.750% of principal — par plus one coupon, the standard shape. It may also take out up to 10% of each secured series a year at 103%, with unused 2026 and 2027 allowances carried forward one year only.

The last numbers

The mechanics of stopping being public are all in the same document. Nasdaq was asked to suspend trading before the open on 5 August and to file a Form 25. EA then filed a Form 15 on 14 August 2026, terminating registration and suspending its reporting obligations. The existing revolving credit agreement was terminated at closing, and the filing notes it was undrawn immediately beforehand.

Which means the numbers used throughout this article are the last of their kind. The 10-K for the year ended 31 March 2026 is the final annual report. The 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026 was filed on 3 August 2026 — the day before the merger closed.

Whether $1,162 million of operating income comfortably carries $427 million of coupon plus whatever the term loans cost is a fair question. It is also one no future filing will answer.

What this is not

• EA is not the borrower. Parent is. EA is a guarantor, and the security is over the assets of Parent and the guarantors. Sentences here that put the coupon next to EA’s earnings are about where the cash must come from, not about whose income statement carries the expense.
• $427 million is a floor, not the interest bill. Three floating-rate facilities totalling $9,375 million and €1,725 million are excluded because the 8-K does not give their margins.
• The $53.00 billion is our arithmetic. No filing states an aggregate transaction value. The share count is a cover-page figure from 29 July 2026 and options and restricted stock units — all cashed out at $210 — are excluded, so the real consideration is higher. The $55 billion in press coverage is linked in the sources as a claim we tested, not as a source we used.
• No currency is converted. The euro tranches are reported in euro. Any dollar total that mixes them would depend on a rate we would have to choose.
• Nothing here is a view on the price. Whether $210 was a good number for a shareholder is not something these documents answer.

Check it yourself

The consortium, the $210, all six financing instruments and their coupons, the guarantees and the Nasdaq request are in a single 8-K filed on 4 August 2026, linked in the sources. The interest expense, operating income and revenue are in EA’s last 10-K; the senior notes balance, cash and share count are on the face of its last 10-Q.

We have priced other borrowings from the same summer the same way — from the coupon in the filing rather than from a summary — including Alphabet’s nine tranches and the five instruments that funded AI capacity in August.

No share prices appear in this article. Every calculation above is written out in this article’s front matter and re-checked when the site builds.

If a figure here does not match a filing, tell us and it will be corrected on the article and on the corrections log, with the date.