Kirkland & Ellis and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are acting opposite each other on private equity house Pamplona's sale of European pet food manufacturer Partner in Pet Food (PPF) to Cinven.

It marks the first deal private equity partner Higgins has advised on at Kirkland since joining the firm from Freshfields.

Kirkland is advising Pamplona, with a team led by London private equity partners Gavin Gordon and Andrej Wolf. Higgins joined the team in the latter stages of the transaction. He joined Kirkland last month following the news that he had resigned from the magic circle firm in December 2017.

Freshfields is advising longstanding client Cinven, with a team comprising City private equity partners Adrian Maguire, Victoria Sigeti and Christopher Davis.

The magic circle firm acted alongside CMS, which fielded a team led by private equity head James Grimwood in London and international private equity co-head Graham Conlon, the managing partner of the firm's Ukraine office.

Other recent Cinven deals Freshfields has handled have included its £2.4bn sale of legal process outsourcer CPA Global to US private equity firm Leonard Green Partners last year, which was led by Higgins and Maguire. Higgins has since joined Kirkland as London co-managing partner on a deal understood to be worth $10m a year.

PPF, which is headquartered in Hungary, acquired Pamplona three years ago, a deal that saw Kirkland represent the private equity house, with Gordon and Wolf both advising on the €315m purchase in 2015.