Linklaters, Davis Polk & Wardwell and Kirkland & Ellis have all won roles advising on Reckitt Benckiser’s (RB’s) $17.9bn acquisition of Mead Johnson.
RB, the UK-based maker of Nurofen painkillers and Durex condoms will takeover Mead Johnson, which makes infant formula under the Enfa brand and had sales of $3.7bn in 2016.
Linklaters and Davis Polk advised RB on the acquisition. Linklaters corporate partner Sarah Wiggins moved to the consumer products company as interim general counsel as the firm searched for a successor to general counsel for group legal affairs Claire Debney.
Kirkland advised Mead Johnson with a team including London-based corporate partner David Holdsworth, finance partner Neel Sachdev and competition partner Paula Reidel. In the US, Daniel Wolf and Willard Boothby also acted on the deal.
In May Holdsworth joined Kirkland & Ellis from Linklaters, re-joining Linklaters’ former UK head of competition, Riedel, at the end of 2015. Linklaters former Nordic head of private equity Roger Johnson and the Magic Circle firm’s ex-head of real estate M&A Matthew Elliott, as both joined Kirkland in 2015.
RB has recently changed general counsel, with Rupert Bondy, one of the most high-profile in-house leaders in the community joining the business from BP.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
