The pet health business is big business. And one of its biggest players just got bigger. Greenfield, Indiana-based animal health company Elanco, formerly a division of Eli Lilly, has bought the animal health division of German conglomerate Bayer AG for $7.6 billion, making Elanco the second-largest player in the lucrative field, with 13% market share, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Elanco was represented by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and Frankfurt, Germany-based Hengeler Mueller.

The Paul Weiss team consisted of corporate partners Tarun Stewart, Ariel Deckelbaum, Thomas de la Bastide and David Huntington; antitrust partners Andrew Forman and Rick Rule; intellectual property counsel Jonathan Ashtor; tax partner Scott Sontag; litigation partners David Brown and Roberto Gonzalez; employee benefits partner Andrew Gaines; and real estate partner Mitchell Berg. 

Hengeler Mueller did not respond to request for comment.

Bayer was represented by Sullivan & Cromwell, PwC Legal and Linklaters.

The Sullivan & Cromwell team was led by Matthew Hurd, a healthcare and life sciences partner; Carsten Berrar, managing partner of the firm's Frankfurt office and co-chair of the capital markets group; Evan Simpson, London-based general practice group partner; and Mehdi Ansari, a New York-based intellectual property partner.

The Linklaters team was led by Duesseldorf-based antitrust partner Daniela Seeliger and New York-based antitrust partner Thomas McGrath.  

PwC Legal, the other Bayer adviser, did not immediately return a request for their deal team makeup.

The combined company will rank just behind Zoetis and ahead of Boehringer Ingelheim in total market share of the pet health industry, according to Germany's Baader Bank.

The Bayer deal, Elanco's largest since going public, will double its pet business and strengthen its presence in emerging markets and in the cattle business, the company told The Wall Street Journal.

Bayer will get $5.3 billion in cash and a $2.3 billion stake in Elanco, which Bayer plans to sell over time.

The sale by Bayer is part of an asset dump as the company deals with the fallout over plaintiff-friendly verdicts regarding its Roundup weedkiller product. Bayer recently sold its 60% stake in industrial park operator Currenta and Coppertone sunscreens. The company also sold its Dr. Scholl's foot-care products brand to Yellow Wood Partners in July. The company is attempting to focus on its core businesses of pharma and agricultural products, according to The New York Times. 

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In other M&A news: 

Hasbro/Entertainment One

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Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Stikeman Elliott and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for Hasbro/Osler Hoskin & Harcourt and Mayer Brown for Entertainment One

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Kirkland & Ellis for Simply Foods/Winston & Strawn for Quest Nutrition 

Roper Technologies/iPipeline (Thoma Bravo)

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Davis Polk & Wardwell for Roper Technologies/Kirkland & Ellis and Lauletta Birnbaum for iPipeline (Thoma Bravo)

VMWare/Pivotal Technologies

VMWare started as a virtual computing software company. But it has grown. Now a digital infrastructure company with its hands in security, networking and virtual workspaces, the tech company has acquired Pivotal Software in a merger consideration that represents an enterprise value for Pivotal of $2.7 billion. Pivotal is in the app developer platform business, and business was good enough for VMWare to come calling. The companies have worked together before, with the development of VMware Pivotal Container Service in February 2018.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati for VMWare/Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher for the special committee of the VMware board of directors/Davis Polk & Wardwell for Pivotal/Latham & Watkins for the special committee of the Pivotal board of directors

VMWare/Carbon Black

Busy week for VMWare. The tech company also announced that it was acquiring Carbon Black, a company focusing on security for connected devices, for $26 per share with an estimated enterprise value of $2.1 billion. Carbon Black claims 5,600 customers and 500 global partners.

Morrison & Foerster for VMWare/Goodwin Procter for Carbon Black

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