Travers Smith and Clifford Chance (CC) have advised on the €200m (£162m) sale of French skincare manufacturer Cadum to L'Oreal.

Travers advised the seller, Anglo-French private equity firm Milestone Capital Partners, on the deal, with Paris head and corporate finance partner David Patient leading.

CC, meanwhile, advised L'Oreal fielding a team under Paris corporate partner Catherine Astor-Veyres.

The deal also generated roles for French law firms Desfilis & McGowan and Tolomei Avocats where corporate partners Frederic Pinet and Veronique Dutoit led each respective firm's team advising Cadum's management.

Patient said: "Having been involved in the original investment by Milestone in 2007, this was a great result for the company and all its shareholders.

"The re-emergence over the last few years of this iconic French personal care brand, first established in 1907, is a real success story."

The sale marks Milestone's second exit from its portfolio in recent years, following its £59.5m sale of Coffee Nation to Costa Coffee owner the Whitbread Group in March 2011, which saw Osborne Clarke advise Coffee Nation and Slaughter and May act for Whitbread.

The news comes after a pick-up in activity in the private equity sector in
recent months, with deals including CVC Capital Partners' €2.65bn (£2.2bn) sale of Central and Eastern Europe brewing group StarBev to Canada's Molson Coors in March this year, on which Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer acted for CVC and Kirkland & Ellis advised Molson.