While EA won't be subject to the whims of the stock market, private equity ownership presents its own pitfalls. Applying leverageOstensibly, the goal of a private equity acquisition is to optimize the bought-out company's performance for long-term returns, tapping underutilized potential—like EA's mobile business—to increase profits. That grisly process begins with the leveraged buyout, the most common form of private equity acquisition. "A leveraged buyout just means the company is bought using a combination of borrowed money, or debt, and private equity," Venema said. And you'd be right to wonder, because that's exactly what some private equity firms do.