Clifford Chance (CC) and Weil Gotshal & Manges have taken lead roles on Japanese drinks company Suntory's offer to buy Orangina Schweppes Group from two high-profile private equity funds, Lion Capital Holdings and the Blackstone Group.

Weil Gotshal is advising Blackstone and Lion Capital, which purchased Orangina from Cadbury in 2006 for $2.1bn (£1.3bn). London office managing partner Mike Francies is leading the firm's team on the deal.

CC is advising Suntory, which would pay about $2.6bn (£1.6bn) for Orangina under the terms of its offer. Corporate finance partner Joel Ziff is advising the magic circle firm's team.

The deal would give Suntory a foothold in the soft drink business as beer sales decline in Japan and elsewhere.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is providing tax advice to the Blackstone Group, a regular Simpson client.

Weil Gotshal has worked for Lion Capital before, including on its $625m (£380m) deal to buy American Safety Razor Company in 2005. The firm also advised Lion Capital on a handful of smaller transactions in 2008.

In February, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May and Mayer Brown landed roles on the $666.5m (£406m) sale of Anheuser-Busch InBev's 20% stake in China's Tsingtao Brewery to Japan's Asahi Breweries.

This article first appeared on The Am Law Daily blog on americanlawyer.com.