Linklaters and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have taken lead roles on Bank of America Merrill Lynch's $882m (£563m) sale of its non-US private banking operations to Swiss private bank Julius Baer Group.

The London office of Linklaters is advising the Swiss bank, which will increase its assets under management by 40% through the acquisition. The team is being led by London corporate partners Matt Bland and Dan Schuster-Woldan, who worked with lawyers from the magic circle firm's New York office including UK-qualified corporate partner Casper Lawson.

Bank of America has turned to Cleary for legal advice on the sale of its non-US wealth management business, which has roughly $84bn (£54bn) of assets under management -mostly from wealthy clients in the emerging economies.

The New York firm fielded a cross-border team led by corporate partners Paul Shim and Simon Jay, based in the New York and the London offices respectively.

Cleary has advised Bank of America on a string of deals including its sell-off in 2011 of more than half of its stake in China Construction Bank (CCB) in a deal that raised roughly $8.3bn (£5.3bn).

As part of the sale agreement Bank of America Merrill will provide services including global equity research and structured and advisory products to Julius Baer, with the two organisations agreeing to cross-refer clients.
The sale does not include Bank of America's Japanese joint venture, Mitsubishi UFJ Merrill Lynch PB Securities or international wealth management offices based in the United States.

The deal is one of a number of acquisitions by Julius Baer in recent years. In 2009, it bought the private banking unit of the Dutch firm ING for around $500m (£319m).