Lovells, Ashurst, Slaughter and May, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy have secured roles on the private equity-backed bid for ITV.

Lovells' corporate finance head, Hugh Nineham, is advising ITV on the bid by a consortium of Apax, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs to acquire a controlling interest in the broadcaster.

ITV said last week (22 March) that it had rejected an initial offer to hand the bidding consortium a controlling interest, but leave the company publicly listed.

Ashurst is acting for Apax, fielding a team under private equity head Charlie Geffen, while Michael Wolfson at Simpson Thacher in London is understood to be advising Blackstone.

Chris Saul at Slaughters and Tim Emmerson at Milbank are each advising both Goldman Sachs and the consortium.

The instructions promise a potential boost to the firms' corporate profiles, handing them roles on the first attempt by private equity buyers to acquire a FTSE 100 company. The unusual 'equity stub' bid structure would see the consortium put £1.3bn into ITV in return for a 48% stake, while ITV would increase borrowing and return cash to shareholders.

One M&A partner said: "There is a question about how appropriate it is for listed companies to borrow that much, but the advantages are that the bidder does not have to buy the whole company and everyone gets the opportunity to keep their investment."