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Visitors play the ‘EA Sports FC 25’ game in front of a placard with England’s midfielder Jude Bellingham at the Electronic Arts booth during the media day at the Gamescom video games trade fair in Cologne, western Germany on Aug. 21, 2024. 

Ina Fassbender | AFP | Getty Images

Electronic Arts slashed its full-year bookings guidance on Wednesday, blaming the shortfall on underperforming games, notably its soccer franchise, EA Sports FC. The shares dropped 7% in extended trading.

For the fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec. 31, EA said it expects to report about $2.215 billion in net bookings, versus previous guidance of $2.4 billion to $2.55 billion.

Revenue in the December quarter will be about $1.88 billion, with $1.11 in diluted earnings per share, the company said in a statement.

EA said it expects net bookings for the full fiscal year, ending March 31, of between $7 billion and $7.15 billion, below previous guidance of $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion. EA says net bookings include physical game sales as well as revenue from online games.

The warning reveals weakness in the most prominent soccer video game franchise since 1993. It used to fall under the FIFA branding, but in 2022 EA’s deal with FIFA ended and the last two EA soccer games have been sold as EA Sports FC.

The company also said that “Dragon Age,” a role-playing game for game consoles such as Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, had 1.5 million players during the quarter, which underperformed the company’s expectations by nearly 50%.

“During Q3, we continued to deliver high-quality games and experiences across our portfolio,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in the statement. “However, Dragon Age and EA SPORTS FC 25 underperformed our net bookings expectations.”

EA said that while its soccer franchise, which it calls Global Football, had seen two years of double-digit growth in net booking, it started to see a slowdown during the December quarter. The company said that it expects Global Football sales to be down on a year-over-year basis, and said that bookings from online sales, or live services, would also decline in fiscal 2025. The company’s soccer franchise, accounted for the majority of the live services shortfall.

EA said that recently updated FC 25 with new content, improved gameplay, and an annual “Team of the Year” update, which it says was well-received by players.

The warning comes weeks ahead of EA’s planned third-quarter earnings on Feb. 4.

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Stock and crypto trading site eToro prices IPO at $52 per share ahead of Nasdaq debut

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Stock and crypto trading site eToro prices IPO at  per share ahead of Nasdaq debut

Omar Marques | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

EToro, a stock brokerage platform that’s been ramping up in crypto, has priced its IPO at $52 a share, as the company prepares to test the market’s appetite for new offerings.

The Israel-based company raised nearly $310 million, selling nearly 6 million shares in a deal that values the business at about $4.2 billion. The company had planned to sell shares at $46 to $50 each. Another almost 6 million shares are being sold by existing investors.

IPOs looked poised for a rebound when President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January after a prolonged drought spurred by rising interest rates and inflationary concerns. CoreWeave’s March debut was a welcome sign for IPO hopefuls such as eToro, online lender Klarna and ticket reseller StubHub.

But tariff uncertainty temporarily stalled those plans. The retail trading platform filed for an initial public offering in March, but shelved plans as rising tariff uncertainty rattled markets. Klarna and StubHub did the same.

EToro’s Nasdaq debut, under ticker symbol ETOR, may indicate whether the public market is ready to take on risk. Digital physical therapy company Hinge Health has started its IPO roadshow, and said in a filing on Tuesday that it plans to raise up to $437 million in its upcoming offering. Also on Tuesday, fintech company Chime filed its prospectus with the SEC.

Another trading app, Webull, merged with a special-purpose acquisition company in April.

Founded in 2007 by brothers Yoni and Ronen Assia along with David Ring, eToro competes with the likes of Robinhood and makes money through fees related to trading, including spreads on buy and sell orders, and non-trading activities such as withdrawals and currency conversion.

Net income jumped almost thirteenfold last year to $192.4 million from $15.3 million a year earlier. The company has been ramping up its crypto business, with revenue from cryptoassets more than tripling to over $12 million in 2024. One-quarter of its net trading contribution last year came from crypto, up from 10% the prior year.

This isn’t eToro’s first attempt at going public. In 2022, the company scrapped plans to hit the market through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) during a sharp downturn in equity markets. The deal would have valued the company at more than $10 billion.

CEO Yoni Assia told CNBC early last year that eToro was still aiming for a market debut but “evaluating the right opportunity” as it was building relationships with exchanges, including the Nasdaq.

“We definitely are eyeing the public markets,” he said at the time. “I definitely see us becoming eventually a public company.”

EToro said in its prospectus that BlackRock had expressed interest in buying $100 million in shares at the IPO price. The company said it planned to sell 5 million shares in the offering, with existing investors and executives selling another 5 million.

Underwriters for the deal include Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and UBS.

— CNBC’s Ryan Browne and Jordan Novet contributed reporting

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Dallas Mavericks were paid $33 million over 3 years by Chime for jersey patch

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Dallas Mavericks were paid  million over 3 years by Chime for jersey patch

Klay Thompson #31 of the Dallas Mavericks handles the ball during the game against the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2025 SoFi Play-In Tournament on April 18, 2025 at FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee.

Joe Murphy | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

Chime Financial paid the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks roughly $33 million over three years to have its logo worn as a patch on player jerseys, the company disclosed in its IPO filing Tuesday. 

The Mavericks finalized the jersey deal, along with “certain other sponsorship and promotional rights,” in 2020, but terms weren’t announced. CNBC reported at the time that, citing an NBA official, that the league’s patch sponsorships ranged from $2 million to $20 million per season, depending on market size.

Chime, a San Francisco-based fintech company that provides online banking services like direct deposit and credit cards, plans to soon debut on the Nasdaq. Cynthia Marshall, who was CEO for the Mavericks from 2018 until December of last year, is on Chime’s board, so the company included details of the arrangement in the related party transactions section of its filing.

The company said it paid the Mavericks $10.5 million in 2022, $11.5 million in 2023 and $11.2 million last year.

Marshall told CNBC in 2020 that the decision to select Chime for its jersey patch came as the team was looking to fill its official sponsorship slot, which came with the deal. The logo has been displayed around American Airlines Center, where the Mavericks play their home games.

“We wanted somebody that was doing well as a business and growing,” Marshall said. “It’s a perfect fit.”

Chime’s IPO filing lands a day after the Mavericks shocked the NBA world by winning the draft lottery and the right to draft presumed top pick Cooper Flagg from Duke University. The Mavericks had only a 1.8% chance of landing the top pick based on where they finished in the standings. ESPN reported on Wednesday that the Mavericks plan to draft Flagg and are not considering the possibility of trading him.

It was a remarkably fortuitous turn of events for a front office and ownership team that’s been roundly criticized for months since trading franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic in February, bringing back older star Anthony Davis in return.

Longtime owner Mark Cuban sold a majority stake in the Mavericks in 2023 to casino owner Miriam Adelson and her family.

In October, the Mavericks announced a multi-year extension to its Chime deal, agreeing to showcase the brand and the company’s products more broadly. One new aspect was the creation of Chime Lane, “a dedicated entrance featuring exclusive benefits for Chime members during Mavs games and select events at AAC,” the team said in a press release.

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

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Epic Systems sued by CureIS Healthcare for alleged ‘scheme to destroy’ its business

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Epic Systems sued by CureIS Healthcare for alleged 'scheme to destroy' its business

A sign that reads “Epic Intergalactic Headquarters” on campus.

Epic Systems

CureIS Healthcare, a managed care services company, filed a civil lawsuit against Epic Systems on Monday night, alleging the electronic health record, or EHR, giant has carried out a “multi-prong scheme to destroy” CureIS’ business.

CureIS offers technology and managed services for government programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and other state health initiatives. In a 40-page complaint that was made public on Tuesday, CureIS claims Epic has interfered with its customer relationships, blocked access to necessary data and raised unfounded security concerns, among other anticompetitive practices.

Epic, the leader in the EHR market, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The lawsuit is the latest legal battle facing Epic, which houses medical records for about 280 million patients in the U.S. and offers other health-care tools. Data startup Particle Health filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company in September, alleging Epic has used its dominance in the EHR space to stifle competition in other markets that use that data. 

“Particle’s claims are baseless,” Epic told CNBC in a statement at the time.

CureIS’ suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The company is being represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, the same firm that is representing Particle.

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