Ashurst Morris Crisp has completed a hat-trick of deals for private equity house Cinven this summer by advising on the £1.24bn purchase of Vivendi Universal's French trade and health publications.

The deal follows a series of lucrative instructions from the top London buy-out client including its £1.15bn cash sale of UK magazine publisher IPC and its £204m acquisition of two Burmah Castrol chemical divisions.

The all-French Vivendi deal was run out of Ashursts' Paris office by corporate partner Thomas Forschbach with Bredin Prat, led by corporate partner Sebastian Prat, advising Vivendi.

The parties have already signed a letter of intent and insiders expect the deal to be finalised by mid-October after due diligence has been carried out by the respective lawyers.

Cinven will acquire a number of specialist titles including the construction magazine Groupe Moniteur and the health publications Vidal and Le Quotidien du Medecin.

It is the second European publishing deal this month in which private equity money has won the day over trade buyers, providing a fillip to a sector battered by poor advertising revenues this year.

Cinven, which uses Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as its other preferred corporate adviser, refused to talk about the deal until completion. But Forschbach said: "We are on a good run with Cinven but are aware that private equity instructions are a matter of chance. "Conflicts are a constant occurrence in this business especially when you have as many buy-out clients as we have."

A spokesperson for Vivendi said: "The Cinven offer is the highest and also the most coherent as it enables Vivendi Universals professional division to be kept together." The company had indicated earlier this year that it aimed to sell its trade division to help finance its £1.8bn acquisition of publisher Houghton Miffin.

The European buy-out scene is expecting a number of big money transactions over the next six months, particularly in the telecoms sector.

Private equity houses have spent the year building up large war chests in ant-icipation of securing bargain deals due to weakened share prices across a number of sectors.

Last year £20bn of private equity deals were registered in the UK alone, according to research carried out by KPMG.