Norton Rose and Lovells have become the latest firms to benefit from the £45bn merger bid between Barclays and ABN Amro, with the City firms each advising major Asian clients on more than £2bn worth of investment in the UK financial services giant.

Norton Rose is acting for the China Development Bank and Lovells is representing Temasek, the investment arm of the Singapore Government, which have acquired stakes worth a combined £2.4bn in Barclays ahead of its planned takeover of ABN.