Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has scored a major German instruction for CVC Capital Partners on the leading private equity house's €1.5bn (£1bn) acquisition of power business Ruhrgas Industries.

Freshfields' Cologne arm ran the deal with a team led by corporate partner Ludwig Leyendecker and including competition partner Andreas Rohling.

The vendor, German power group E.ON Ruhrgas, was advised by Shearman & Sterling corporate partners Harald Selzner and Georg Thoma. The company regularly instructs Shearman and Freshfields.

The sale of Ruhrgas, which produces of gas, electricity and water meters, was conducted after an auction that generated interest from a number of rival buy-out houses.

Clifford Chance notably acted for unsuccessful bidder Permira. The firm's top-tier buy-out practice counts CVC and Permira as key clients, with corporate partners Matthew Layton and James Baird acting as the client relationship managers within the firm.

The deal will be regarded as strategically important to Fresh-fields, which has maintained a sustained drive in recent years to raise its profile in the European private equity market.

However, the magic circle firm's respected German buy-out practice suffered a blow last year when New York firm Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy hired three partners to launch a Munich practice.