WSJ Private Equity News: The Morning Leverage: PIPE Is Smoking in Asia

This is private equity, right? And yet more PE firms in Asia are targeting private investments in public equity, or PIPE deals, Sonja Cheung reports for LBO Wire. Baring Private Equity Asia, for instance, is buying more than 50 million shares in Hong Kong-listed skin-care company Magic Holdings International from Queenherb Enterprises for $18.8 million. Baring will hold a 5% stake in the company.

Bay Grove Capital’s cold storage platform Lineage Logistics is acquiring warehousing logistics company Castle & Cooke Cold Storage, LBO Wire’s Beina Xu reports exclusively. CCCS provides cold and dry storage for products like ice cream and frozen pizza, while Lineage Logistics’ products “are commodity-focused—raw seafood, poultry, strawberries and the like,” so there’s little overlap, said Bay Grove Managing Director Kevin Marchetti, who clearly hasn’t tried our famous shrimp-and-strawberry pizza. Read the full story here (subscription required). SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (blog)