With 18.7m followers and a roster of fans that includes the Kardashians and Naomi Campbell, the Instagram page of beauty company Anastasia Beverly Hills offers crafty demonstrations of how to use its products to get the perfect eyebrows and lips. In one image, a model has a tiny heart carved into her manicured eyebrow. 

The successful social media account is more than a marketing tool, however, for the cosmetics business owned by Romanian-born billionaire Anastasia Soare. It was also listed as one of the company’s “general intangible” assets in documents for a $650m loan to fund a partial buyout by private equity firm TPG Capital, according to people familiar with the deal.

Even more striking than the eyebrow-raising collateral, the loan came with few of the investor protections that were once standard in loan documents, such as the ability to potentially move assets out of the reach of lenders. Such provisions have been criticised for undermining investors’ claims on a company’s collateral in the event of financial problems — even an Instagram account. Anastasia Beverly Hills and TPG declined to comment.