Ropes & Gray, Allen & Overy, Latham & Watkins and local outfit Franklin have landed roles on French media giant Vivendi's €15bn (£12bn) sale of its phone unit SFR to European cable group Altice.

Altice won a bidding contest against French industrial group Bouygues S.A. to acquire SFR through its subsidiary Numericable Group. The deal is thought to be one of the largest leveraged finance deal in Europe since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Ropes & Gray advised long-standing client Altice on the financing of the transaction A London team including partners Mike Kazakevich, Mike Goetz and Brenda Coleman led for the US-based firm.

Paris firm Franklin advised Altice on the M&A side, with corporate finance partner Alexandre Marque leading. Mayer Brown advised on deal structuring and tax, with tax partners Laurent Borey and Olivier Parawan leading.

Kazakevich said: "There is an imbalance between supply and demand which means rates are good and underwriting banks are more willing. Altice are opportunistic – they started out as a small telecoms company and are now a massive conglomerate which makes them a really exciting client to work for."

Allen & Overy acted for Vivendi, fielding a team led by Paris-based M&A partner Marcus Billam.

Latham & Watkins instructed the underwriting banks, including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan . The firm's team was led by London partners Dan Maze and Scott Colwell.

Altice intends to fund the acquisition through a combination of U.S. and European high yield debt, covenant lite loans, revolving loans and an equity rights issuance.

The deal follows Liberty Global's cash and stock purchase of Dutch cable company Ziggo for €6.9bn (£5.7bn) on which roles were handed to Ropes & Gray, Latham & Watkins, A&O and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Altice became a new client for Ropes & Gray in 2012 when former Liberty Global treasurer Dennis Okhuijsen, left the cable company for Altice. The firm also acted on Altice's IPO in January this year.