Slaughter and May has acted alongside 10 of its best friend firms on Malaysian bank CIMB Group's £174m acquisition of a host of RBS assets in the Asia-Pacific region.

The magic circle firm led for CIMB with a team headed up by Hong Kong partners David Watkins and Laurence Rudge, alongside City tax partners Gareth Miles and Mike Lane and London employment partner Roland Doughty.

Slaughters was joined on the deal by 10 of its best friend firms, including Australia's Allens Arthur Robinson, China's Jun He, India's Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, US outfit Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison and Singapore's Allen & Gledhill.

Indonesia's Soewito Suhardiman Eddymurthy Kardono, Malaysia's Zaid Ibrahim & Co, South Korea's Shin & Kim, Taiwan's Tsar & Tsai, and Chandler & Thong-ek in Thailand were all also involved on the deal, which has seen CIMB acquire most of RBS's cash equities and investment banking businesses across Hong Kong, China, India, Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

Meanwhile, Linklaters advised RBS with a team led by corporate heavyweight Matthew Middleditch.

Slaughters outlined plans in September last year to tighten its relationships with local firms in Asia, with the firm planning to increase secondments to the region and send lawyers to Korea for the first time. The firm is also set to relocate another City partner to Hong Kong – corporate specialist Peter Brien – in August this year as it continues to grow its capacity in the region.

The deal comes after HSBC last month agreed to sell its Asia and Latin America insurance business to France's AXA and Australia's QBE for around $900m (£569m).