Several private equity firms recently looked into buying Microsoft’s Xbox unit at a valuation of $100 billion to $150 billion, according to Valida Pau and Aaron Holmes at The Information. The talks were exploratory and never turned into negotiations with Microsoft, which responded that “Xbox is not for sale.” Even the low end would beat the largest leveraged buyout on record, which was the $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts earlier this year. Xbox, which includes Activision Blizzard, saw revenue drop 7% to $21.8 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June, and its adjusted profit margin has shrunk to about 3%. Around the same time the firms were looking, Microsoft weighed restructuring Xbox as a separate subsidiary, which would simplify a sale.
