Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw and Cravath Swaine & Moore have landed lead roles on the $5.5bn (£2.8bn) acquisition of Novartis' baby food brand by foodstuffs giant Nestle – the second major deal between the two companies in recent months.

Mayer Brown is advising regular client Nestle as it agreed to acquire the Gerber baby food brand from Swiss drug maker Novartis – a deal announced earlier today (12 April). Corporate partner David Carpenter is leading the Mayer Brown team from the firm's Chicago hub.

Nestle was also advised in-house by vice president of legal Trevor Brown, European M&A counsel Patrick Beringer and US M&A counsel Yun Choi Au.