The PIPEs market is a $27 billion financing market for public company issuers. A PIPEs transaction is the privately negotiated sale (i.e., private placement) of a public issuer’s equity or equity-linked securities to a targeted group of investors, where the sale is conditioned upon a subsequent registration statement being filed with, and declared effective by, the Securities Exchange Commission ("SEC"). This permits for the immediate resale of the securities purchased upon effectiveness.

A RD offering is a "public style" transaction which is an extension of the PIPEs market; RDs have grown rapidly during the past several years and now account for approximately 10% of PIPEs overall. A RD offering is a “best efforts” placement of registered equity off an issuer’s existing effective shelf registration statement, generally, to a targeted number of institutional investors; the common stock is immediately eligible for resale.

The following Chart compares the various types of transactions. Chapter 1 ("Overview: An Emerging Market") of PIPEs “A Guide to Private Investments in Public Equity” (Revised and updated Edition) published by Bloomberg Press (2005) was authored by Cowen and contains more detailed information on the PIPEs and RDs market.