Ashurst acted for funds advised by Equistone Partners Europe (EPE) on financing the acquisition of four market-leading providers of automated online marketing services. The companies, Performance Media, econda, Blue Summit Media und DELASOCIAL have agreed to consolidate their offerings under one holding company. The newly formed group is called Performance Interactive Alliance (PIA). The four companies are active in display advertising and marketing (Performance Media), website analytics solutions (econda), search engine optimisation and -advertising (Blue Summit Media) and social media marketing and brand management (DELASOCIAL). They were sold by their shareholders and founders, who have re-invested into the group as shareholders of PIA.

The financing of the acquisition was provided by Ares Capital as a unitranche financing: The borrower, PIA, issued bearer bonds which were subsequently acquired by debt funds managed by Ares Capital. This is the first unitranche in Germany that has been documented in the German language.

The Ashurst team was led by Munich finance partner Dr Bernd Egbers, comprising partners Dr Tobias Krug (Terms and Conditions of Bonds) and Heiko Penndorf (Tax, both Frankfurt). They were supported by senior associate Carsten Endres, associate Thomas Freund and transaction manager Susanne Kasnitz (all Finance, Munich) as well as by tax associate Felix Krüger from Frankfurt.

PIA's headquarters will be based in Hamburg, Germany. The group employs around 360 people across offices in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe, as well as at a software development site in Belgrade, Serbia, and serves more than 900 clients including Lufthansa, Swarovski and Mont Blanc.