Slaughter and May and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz have taken lead roles on a multimillion-pound two-part deal involving Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive.

The deal will see Unilever sell its Sanex personal care brand to Colgate for €672m (£590m), while also paying $215m (£132m) for a portfolio of Colgate laundry detergent brands in Colombia.

Slaughters was instructed by longstanding client Unilever to advise on the Sanex disposition, while New York law firm Herrick Feinstein provided corporate advice on the Colombian transaction. Herrick worked alongside Unilever associate general counsel David Schwartz.

The Slaughters team was led by corporate partner Gary Eaborn alongside four other London partners – Cathy Connolly (intellectual property), Charles Cameron (pensions and employment), Sara Luder (tax) and Michael Rowe (competition).

Herrick Feinstein's team was headed up by Newark-based venture capital chief Edward Stevenson.

Colgate, meanwhile, instructed elite US firm Wachtell, which fielded a team under corporate partner Joshua Cammacer.

The deal will allow Unilever to address competition concerns as part of its $1.6bn (£1.2bn) acquisition of Sara Lee's personal care unit in 2009.

Slaughters' Eaborn commented: "The deal comes in response to the European Commission's requirement that Unilever divest the Sanex brand. It was particularly interesting because it involved two linked transactions – essentially it was an asset swap."

The 2009 deal saw Slaughters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer instructed by Unilever and Sara Lee respectively.