PIPEs: A Guide to Private Investments in Public Equity

Rating:
Summary: Essential reading material!
Review: As a layman in the world of finance I found this particular book to be extremely helpful in explaining PIPEs in overview as well as the finer points of a PIPE transaction. I highly recommend this material to anyone who would like to learn how a PIPE works.

Rating:
Summary: Get connected to PIPEs
Review: More and more companies are using PIPEs to raise capital, and this book is both the definitive and authoritative guide to this growing field. The contributors clearly know their stuff--and the book covers all the relevant topics, from deal structures to legal issues and the industry outlook. I was most impressed with the chapter on due diligence and the case studies. If you need to understand this field (and if you work in finance, you do or will very soon), this is the book to get.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Introduction to PIPES through 2002
Review: Seldom have I read as informative and as easy to understand a book as this one on a little understood area of private finance. PIPEs (Private Investments in Public Equity) mainly appear in the business press when something goes spectacularly wrong, so they have had a spotty reputation. With a weak stock market since 1999, it?s been harder to make money on PIPEs as an investor. But PIPEs have been even more important to those smaller companies which need equity financing before they can do a public offering. So PIPEs are here to stay, and this book is a superb way to begin your introduction.

The book uses essays from top professionals in the field to define the different types of PIPEs; measure the history of PIPEs; describe the perspectives of issuers, lawyers, bankers, accountants and investors; outline the legal issues involved; show examples through term sheets, case histories and due diligence examples; and describe probable future develops in the field. If the book has a weakness, it is that the essays have some repetition in them . . . but that's essential to be sure that the terms being used are understood clearly by the reader.

This book will be essential reading for CFOs, treasurers, hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, bankers, lawyers, accountants, consultants, scholars and finance students.

I thought that the material in Part Three was the strongest in the book. You will probably understand the subject better if you skip to Part Three after reading the overview by Richard E. Gormley and David W Stadinksi from SG Cowen. Then go back to the second essay by E. Kurt Kim of PrivateRaise and follow through to the end of Part Two. If you don't need to understand the legal background, you can skip Part Two.

Anyone who wants to learn how to do better due diligence in any area of finance can learn a lot from the fine essay by Stewart R. Flink of Crestview Capital Funds, "Due Diligence: Caveat Emptor Squared."

I was particularly pleased to see that the essays generously point out all of the ways that these deals can be misstructured, and how you can make a mistake as an investor. Hopefully, the track record of future PIPEs deals will improve as a result.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Introduction to PIPES through 2002
Review: Seldom have I read as informative and as easy to understand a book as this one on a little understood area of private finance. PIPEs (Private Investments in Public Equity) mainly appear in the business press when something goes spectacularly wrong, so they have had a spotty reputation. With a weak stock market since 1999, it?s been harder to make money on PIPEs as an investor. But PIPEs have been even more important to those smaller companies which need equity financing before they can do a public offering. So PIPEs are here to stay, and this book is a superb way to begin your introduction.

The book uses essays from top professionals in the field to define the different types of PIPEs; measure the history of PIPEs; describe the perspectives of issuers, lawyers, bankers, accountants and investors; outline the legal issues involved; show examples through term sheets, case histories and due diligence examples; and describe probable future develops in the field. If the book has a weakness, it is that the essays have some repetition in them . . . but that's essential to be sure that the terms being used are understood clearly by the reader.

This book will be essential reading for CFOs, treasurers, hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, bankers, lawyers, accountants, consultants, scholars and finance students.

I thought that the material in Part Three was the strongest in the book. You will probably understand the subject better if you skip to Part Three after reading the overview by Richard E. Gormley and David W Stadinksi from SG Cowen. Then go back to the second essay by E. Kurt Kim of PrivateRaise and follow through to the end of Part Two. If you don't need to understand the legal background, you can skip Part Two.

Anyone who wants to learn how to do better due diligence in any area of finance can learn a lot from the fine essay by Stewart R. Flink of Crestview Capital Funds, "Due Diligence: Caveat Emptor Squared."

I was particularly pleased to see that the essays generously point out all of the ways that these deals can be misstructured, and how you can make a mistake as an investor. Hopefully, the track record of future PIPEs deals will improve as a result.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: This is an excellent and comprehensive introduction to PIPEs. The acronym stands for Private Investment in Public Equity, and this includes not only common stock but warrants and other permutations of equity. Companies often issue PIPEs when they need capital but when market conditions make it imprudent to raise funds through a public offering. Most PIPEs investors are sophisticated institutions, and hedge funds are probably the most active participants in the market. PIPEs are a high-risk investment with abundant legal, market, regulatory and other complexities. This book neither attempts to sell PIPEs nor to discourage people from buying them. While somewhat repetitive, it is reasonably objective and reasonably thorough. We strongly recommend it to professional investors.