By KEVIN KINGSBURY
China Real Estate Information Corp. filed plans with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to sell as much as $200 million of American depositary shares through an initial public offering.

The company is China's largest provider of real-estate information and consulting services based on revenue. It is a unit of E-House (China) Holdings Ltd., a real-estate services company in China.

China Real Estate's earnings for the first half of 2009 were $11 million on revenue of $31.2 million, up from year-earlier earnings of $7.2 million on revenue of $19.3 million. China's real-estate market, after slowing down at the height of the financial crisis, has resuming a strong growth trajectory.

China Real Estate is in the process of acquiring the online real-estate business of Sina Corp. After that deal is completed, the company will begin generating online-advertising revenue. China Real Estate owns 34% of a joint venture with Sina. Sina would own a sizable stake of China Real Estate after the IPO; the amount is to be determined based on the IPO's size.

The company plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol CRIC. Proceeds from the offering would be used in part for capital spending.

Asia has been a hotbed for the recent uptick in U.S. IPO activity. IPO activity in general has picked up the past two months as equity markets continued to rebound.
 

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