White & Case and Ashurst have bagged roles advising on Chicago Bridge & Iron's (CB&I's) $950m (£470m) acquisition of US-based Lummus Global from power and technology group Asea Brown Boveri (ABB).

White & Case advised ABB – the world's largest maker of factory robots – after winning a pitch for the deal at the beginning of the year. Although the firm has acted for ABB previously, this is the first public deal it has handled for the client.

White & Case London-based corporate partner Mats Sacklen led the team, assisted by associate Nicole McMahon and New York-based Greg Pryor and Ken Regensburg – corporate partner and associate respectively.

Ashurst advised long-term client CB&I on the acquisition of Lummus – a provider of project management and engineering services to the oil and gas industries – from ABB after an auction process.

The deal, which was signed last week and is set to close by the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval, was led by Ashurst corporate partner Susan Roy, assisted by tax partner Richard Palmer and associate Nick Rainsford. The firm was initially instructed in April. It is understood that CB&I was advised on US law by Fulbright & Jaworski.

Ashurst advised CB&I in 2003 on its acquisition of John Brown Hydrocarbons from Yukos Oil Company, one of Russia's largest integrated petroleum companies. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised Yukos on the deal.

Sacklen commented: "Until the recent credit crunch effectively put a brake on new private equity buy-outs, well-run auctions of attractive businesses have been intensely competitive for some time. This has prompted corporate sellers to emulate their private equity colleagues and has allowed them to achieve terms that come close to those that one would expect in a private equity exit. This transaction is consistent with this trend."

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