Bohai Industrial investment fund, China's first Western-styled private equity fund, made its debut investment Friday. Where did the money go? Not to the tech sector or to clean energy. Not into the booming Internet industry. And not into some other portion of the finance industry...

Bohai's debut investment was in a more traditional economic sector. With their debut investment Bohai bought a 20% state in Tianjin Pipe Corporation, according to the China Daily.




The Daily called the investment "a milestone for the nation's fledgling PE sector." Bohai paid about 1.5 billion yuan, or US$201 million, for the stake in Tianjin Pipe. One advantage of the deal for Bohai is that both companies are based in the same city - Tianjin, in Northeast China.

Tianjin Pipe is the country's largest maker of steel pipes for building oil pipelines; it makes about half the country's oil pipes. Tianjin Pipe expects to have around 37 billion yuan in sales revenue this year and make a 1.6 billion yuan profit.

Bohai Industrial Investment Fund was approved in December as China's first private equity fund.