Roughly a half-dozen large law firms—including a new antitrust team recruited by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison—are advising on Bayer AG’s $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto Co., maker of the herbicide Roundup. The proposed deal, announced Wednesday, is the largest all-cash transaction in history.
Five big firms—led by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Sullivan & Cromwell and Allen & Overy—were initially tapped to handle the work related to Bayer’s initial $62 billion bid for Monsanto. The St. Louis-based target, which rejected that offer this summer, came around after Bayer raised its purchase price by 5 percent.
