Strategic View: Adevinta, the online classifieds platform owned by Blackstone and Permira, completed a €6.5 billion unitranche refinancing in Q2 2025—Europe’s largest direct lending transaction on record. The deal involved approximately 20 direct lenders replacing the existing €4.5 billion facility with improved terms, demonstrating private credit’s capacity to execute jumbo refinancings previously reserved for syndicated markets .
Full story: This landmark transaction fundamentally reshapes perceptions of European private credit scale limits. Adevinta’s €6.5 billion refinancing—executed entirely through direct lenders rather than syndicated bank markets—represents the single largest private credit deal in European history. The transaction refinanced and upsized the company’s existing €4.5 billion unitranche originally arranged when Blackstone and Permira acquired Adevinta in 2023, itself one of Europe’s largest LBOs backed by private credit .
The club structure involved approximately 20 direct lending funds coordinating to provide the massive facility. While specific lender names weren’t fully disclosed, participants likely included European direct lending leaders such as Ares Management, Apollo, Sixth Street, Golub Capital, and other large-cap specialists capable of committing €200-500 million tranches. This distributed risk approach allowed individual lenders to participate meaningfully without excessive single-borrower concentration while providing Adevinta with competitive pricing and unified documentation .
The competitive dynamic proved fascinating. Blackstone and Permira actively solicited competing proposals from both the direct lending club and traditional bank syndicates seeking to provide lower-cost term loan B facilities. Banks, desperate for large-scale deployment opportunities amid subdued M&A activity, offered aggressive pricing to win the mandate. However, sponsors ultimately chose the direct lending path—prioritizing execution certainty, relationship continuity with existing lenders, and flexible documentation over marginally lower interest costs .
The deal economics reflect European private credit’s premium pricing. The unitranche reportedly carries a 575 basis point margin over Euribor with a 98 original issue discount. While expensive compared to syndicated alternatives (likely 400-450 bps), this pricing proved acceptable to sponsors given the strategic benefits. The transaction demonstrates that for truly large-cap borrowers, private credit can now compete with—and win against—traditional syndicated markets on deals exceeding €5 billion .
Structurally, the unitranche likely employs bifurcated first-out/last-out tranches governed by an Agreement Among Lenders (AAL), allowing participating funds to allocate risk and return according to their mandates while presenting unified documentation to the borrower. This structural sophistication enables European direct lenders to execute transactions rivaling Wall Street’s largest syndications, marking private credit’s evolution from mid-market niche to large-cap mainstream financing channel .
Summary: Adevinta’s record €6.5 billion direct lending club refinancing—Europe’s largest ever—involved approximately 20 lenders and demonstrates private credit’s capacity to execute jumbo transactions previously exclusive to syndicated markets. The transaction refinanced and upsized the existing €4.5 billion facility while defeating competing bank proposals, validating that relationship continuity and execution certainty justify premium pricing even for multi-billion-euro financings .
Source: Rothschild & Co European Leveraged Finance Report, Alternative Credit Investor – Ares Rankings, PE Insights – Adevinta
