E-HOUSE (China) Holdings Ltd, the largest integrated real estate service provider in China, is planning to raise as much as US$150 million in an initial public offering of American depositary receipts to further expand its business.

The Shanghai-based company intends to list its ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange, and Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch & Co are underwriting the IPO, according to a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

E-House, which operates in more than 20 cities across the country by offering mainly real estate brokerage and consulting services, will use the proceeds to extend its network, upgrade its information system, increase sales and marketing efforts and fund other corporate development activities.

The number of ADRs to be sold or their pricing were not disclosed in the filing, however.

Set up in 2000, E-House has remained the largest real estate agency and consulting services company in China since 2004, in terms of transaction volume, value of deals, gross floor area, or GFA, of properties sold, as well as sales network.

The firm said it sold about five million square meters of new properties worth a total of 42 billion yuan (US$5.45 billion) between 2001 and 2006.

Sales jumped 45 percent to US$56 million in 2006 from a year earlier, with 81.6 percent of that from primary agency services, 6.9 percent from secondary brokerage services and rest from consulting and information services. Net income reached US$4.4 million in the first quarter of this year on US$16 million of revenues, according to the filing.