(BFM Stock Exchange) – The video game giant Electronics Arts recently announced its acquisition by a group of investors for an amount of $ 55 billion. It is a withdrawal from the record side. Why do groups decide to say “goodbye” on the scholarship?

Monday, September 29, Electronics Arts known for its sports franchises, including the series “FIFA” (renowned “EA Sports FC” in recent years) and listed at Wall Street, announced its acquisition by an investor consortium for $ 55 billion.

According to Electronic Arts, its acquisition represents the largest exit from a group of a group with a transaction financed entirely in cash. According to the New York Times, the previous record dated from 2007 with the removal of the Texas Utility side for $ 32 billion.

To live happy, do we live hidden?

Leaving the scholarship should not be perceived as a sanction by observers. After a certain time spent on the market, investment funds or the historic shareholders of a company can become aware of the loss of interest in the rating, without the viability and solidity of the company are called into question.

The reasons for a removal of the side are multiple: drop in the course of action with or unrelated to the fundamentals of the company, heavy or unsuitable regulations or the costs of a presence on the stock market too heavy to bear.

These arguments had been formulated by the digital service company SII, to justify its departure from the scholarship. The family company had, with the support of funds managed by Blackstone, launched a public offer in February 2024.

“The Huvé family group, the leader (Eric Matteucci, Editor’s note) and managers now wish to be accompanied by a professional financial partner to issue the business plan in the coming years and be able to seize development opportunities while lightening regulatory and administrative constraints and costs related to rating,” said SII to justify this operation.

“The causes are multiple: growing disconnection between value creation and market valuation, a penalizing insufficiency of liquidity leading to a lack of follow -up on the part of analysts, the will of investors to benefit from the withdrawal premium and finally the companies which easily find debt or private equity funds to finance the operation”, had detailed Degroof Petercam to explain this deception of companies family for the scholarship.

The ignorance or misunderstanding of the company’s professions by investors or the impossibility for the entity to finance itself properly on the market are also the reasons mentioned for a side -of -the -side.

Once the company has returned to “anonymity”, shareholding and/or business management can have frank cubits to pilot a restructuring, or strategic change. By escaping the caudine forks from a sometimes short-termist market.

The moulting phase can last for several years. It is likely to lead to an increase in the debt of the company, in particular to finance external or internal growth, recruitments of talents and investments essential for the repositioning of the company, etc.

“The issuers are increasingly choosing the withdrawal of the scholarship in order to focus on long-term strategies far from market pressures,” said Herbert Smith Freehills Paris in his first half-yearly bulletin dedicated to mergers and acquisitions targeting French-style French companies published in October 2024.

This argument has been mentioned many times by companies targeted by a public offer, in France. The Somfy group left the Parisian side in early 2023, after a buy -back offer of its majority shareholder. This operation was part of “the reference shareholder’s desire to support the growth of activities over the long term”, advanced the company.

In 2023, the French specialist in distance sales of office equipment and industrial equipment Manutan decided to draw a line on its stock market. The group no longer felt the need to stay on the stock market when it has never requested investors to finance themselves. The same year, it was Limagrain, the majority shareholder in the Vilmorin seedcut, who had justified the launch of a public purchasing offer simplified by the lack of interest presented by a rating of its subsidiary on the stock market, which had not called on the market since 2010.

Investment capital for maneuver

In recent years, side withdrawals have been higher than the stock market entrances. These operations have increased greatly thanks to a regulatory development that made it possible to fluidify this market. The PACTE law lowered 90% against 95% previously the key to success detention threshold to make a compulsory withdrawal from the coast. And so force the minorities to bring their titles to an offer.

“In the 1900s and 2010s, numerous outings of ratings had been hampered by investors who took advantage of the 95% threshold to try to monetize their participation at a higher price, as was the case for Afflelou and APRR in 2006 or CEGID in 2016”, explains Henri-Louis Delsol in Dafmag.fr, lawyer specialized in mergers/acquisitions and corporate law.

In 2024, 36 companies turned their back on the Paris Stock Exchange, five more than in 2023, according to the 16th barometer of public offers from EY. And the year 2025 will be no exception, with more companies that have been removed from the side than companies that dared to go on the stock market. As an example: the producer of renewable energy Neoen left the rating last spring after a buy-back offer from the Canadian capital-investment company Brookfield for 6.1 billion euros.

“In a context where the scholarship has difficulty assessing the valuation of producers of renewable energy since the increase in rates, this announcement (from the acquisition of Neoen, editor’s note) should also carry the other players in the sector, in particular its French competitor Voltalia”, had pointed out Invest Securities, during the announcement of this operation in May 2024.

At the beginning of 2025, the founder of Believe called on several investment capital funds to help him get his company out of the Parisian coast, judging that the course of his company on the stock market did not reflect the operational dynamic of his group.

The funds of Private Equity (investment capital) are indeed increasingly maneuvering, and become essential actors of these operations. These actors are better able to enhance a listed company, or to help it operate in a long time, without the pressure of the stock market. The goal is to unlock this hidden value.

Private Equity can thus represent an alternative to the scholarship, especially since the multiple valuation granted are sometimes more generous.

“The world of ‘Private Equity’ is sufficiently powerful, wide, diversified and can provide a lot of investment capacity, liquidity (…)”, said in late 2024 Stéphane Boujnah, general manager and president of the Euronext board at the BFM Business antenna.

“P2P2P”

These side withdrawal operations are not irreversible. Like cats, companies can have several lives … on the financial markets. The returns of companies on the market after being out of it for the first time exist, even if the cases are rare. These rather unknown operations of the general public are called “Public to Private to Public Again” or “P2P2P” in the language of Shakespeare.

Among these emblematic scholarship returns, difficult to ignore that of General Motors. The ex-industrial-industrialist returned to the scholarship in 2010, and at the time signed the biggest IPO in the history of the United States. This return to the parquet floors of Wall Street had intervened a little more than a year after its rescue by the United States government.

For its part, the Hilton hotel Empire made a triumphant return to Wall Street in December 2013, six years after being bought by the Blackstone investment fund as part of a LBO of nearly $ 27 billion.

In France, some (rare) companies have gone back and forth like the American groups Dell, General Motors or Hilton. We can quote Elior who returned to the stock market in 2015, after being released by the Charterhouse and Capital Funds in 2006.

A P2P2P thus offers shareholders a new liquidity and a partial or total exit solution of the investment. Particularly if the efforts made throughout the unduized life of the company allowed a reintroduction of a higher valuation than that to which the company was out of the coast.