Publicly traded video game giant Electronic Arts is closing in on a nearly $50 billion deal to become a privately held company, Variety has confirmed.

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal Friday , a group of investors, including private-equity firms Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners are in talks with the maker of “The Sims,” “Battlefield” and “Madden” franchises to take the company private. If the deal goes through, it would like be the biggest leveraged buyout in history based on EA’s current $48.38 billion market cap.

Representatives for Electronic Arts and Silver Lake did not immediately respond to request for comment Friday.

In its most recent quarterly earnings report for the April 1-June 30 quarter, EA reported n

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