Andrew Peat was an in-house corporate lawyer who spent more than 30 years working with Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch household goods and food manufacturing company. He was closely involved in the 1997 sale of Unilever’s speciality chemicals business to ICI for nearly £5 billion.

He qualified as a solicitor in October 1965 and joined Unilever in 1968. With a quick legal mind and ability as a tough negotiator, he became a specialist in mergers and acquisitions. He was appointed regional counsel for Europe and subsequently took the same role for Latin America

He completed some of his most important work in the early 1990s and on retirement in 2000 he had risen to become Unilever’s second most senior legal executive. Peat was widely known throughout the Unilever organisation, which employed about 300,000 people. Described by a colleague as “the well-travelled face of Unilever’s central management team”, he had a reputation for instilling confidence in those he visited.

As one of Unilever’s most mobile executives, his life was not without hazards. In 1985, while helping with the purchase of a Mexican food business, he was trapped in the upper floors of a hotel during the Mexico City earthquake. About 10,000 men, women and children were killed but Peat escaped unhurt. He was singled out for special commendation by Sir Michael Angus, who joined Unilever in 1954 and rose to be chairman from 1986 to 1992.

Four Unilever subsidiaries were sold to ICI in 1997 in a deal that proved better for the seller than the buyer. Peat was one of those leading the sale of the subsidiaries: National Starch, Quest, Unichema, and Crosfield.

To begin with, ICI investors signalled approval for the deal and shares in the company rose. By 1999, however, the businesses faltered, and ICI began to struggle with the large debts taken on to finance the purchase. Analysts, benefiting from hindsight, suggest that the deal led ICI into difficulty while it helped Unilever to trade through difficult years in greater comfort. ICI used to bask in a reputation as a bellwether of British industry. A decade after the deal with Unilever a shrunken ICI was bought by Akzo Nobel, the Dutch chemicals company.

Peat led negotiations for Unilever with Robert Maxwell, the disgraced publishing tycoon, over the purchase of Thames Board Mills, a paper and packaging company. It was, Peat recalled, a menacing experience.

In 1989 Peat helped Unilever to secure Fabergé and Elizabeth Arden, the cosmetics brands. The deal pushed Unilever up the global league of cosmetics companies, from fourth to equal first place. It was a long negotiation and unusual because so much detail leaked into the public domain. Unilever secured the deal having walked away from the negotiating table when the sellers, the US-based Riklis family, tried to increase terms. With Peat as part of the team, Unilever won control of Fabergé and Arden at the originally agreed price of £950 million.

Peat is survived by his wife, Lynn, and a daughter.

Andrew Peat, corporate lawyer, was born on August 21, 1940. He died in an accident on holiday in South America on November 11, 2008, aged 68