The decision by German conglomerate Linde and chip maker Intel to give up majority control of some of their assets has been rewarded.
Linde took 17.1% of Ikaria, a US-based bio-pharmaceutical company as part of a $380m cash-and-stock sale of its gaseous drug-maker, INO Therapeutics.
Ikaria has filed for a $200m flotation on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Private equity firm New Mountain Capital owns 51% of Ikaria having invested $200m of equity as part of the deal that saw INO therapeutics merge with biotech company Ikaria in 2007 with a combined value of $670m.
For the 12 months to end-December, Ikaria had annual revenues of $274.3m compared to $158.5m at the end of 2007.
US venture capital firms Arch Venture Partners and Venrock each own 10.1% of Ikaria, which has Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as lead bookrunners of its initial public offering.
Separately, Nasdaq-listed chip maker Micron Technology has acquired flash memory company Numonyx for $1.2bn.
Micron issued about 138 million shares of its common stock to chip peers Intel and STMicroelectronics and US buyout firm Francisco Partners, which formed Numonyx in 2008.
Intel contributed its share of flash memory assets for a 45.1% stake in Numonyx, STMicroelectronics gained a 48.6% stake for its business lines and Francisco invested $150m for a 6.3% stake of a company that now has more than a third of the market in its niche, according to data provider iSuppli.
At end-December, Numonyx had net assets of $1.3bn with $42m in free cash flow based on quarterly revenues of about $550m in the final three months of the year.