Focus Media, China's largest outdoor electronic advertising firm, aims to raise up to US$100 million from a Nasdaq stock offering in the first three months of 2005. The company sells advertising that runs on plasma screens at golf courses, bowling alleys, ice-skating rinks and in more than 10,000 mainland office buildings.

Targetmedia Network, another outdoor media outfit part-funded by United States private equity firm Carlyle Group, hopes to raise a similar amount selling shares in either Hong Kong or New York.

``We want to raise US$100 million from our IPO, probably toward the end of the first half [next year],'' a Targetmedia spokesperson said.

``We have in mind who we want to underwrite our stock sale,'' the spokesperson added, without elaborating. Targetmedia CEO David Yu said previously that either Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley or Credit Suisse First Boston would underwrite its stock sale. ``Both companies are very solid, and at least one of them is certain to list on the Nasdaq,'' Eric Wen, an Internet analyst at UBS in Shanghai, said.

Electronic advertising in places such as city streets, light railway stations and office buildings is flourishing on the mainland as marketers fight to capture the attention of the country's increasingly well-heeled consumers.

Nielsen Media Research has estimated that mainland advertising spending in 2003 totalled US$14.5 billion, up 40 per cent from 2002, making China the world's fifth-largest advertising market behind the US, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.

Both Shanghai firms, racing neck and neck to sell shares first, have boosted their capital base in recent years.

Focus Media has raised about US$70 million in venture capital over the past 12 months from the likes of Chinese fund United Capital, Japan's Softbank and Hong Kong-based CDH China Fund.

Targetmedia has benefited from Carlyle Group's recent foray into China, becoming the Washington, DC-based buyout firm's first major mainland investment.

It pumped US$15 million of seed capital into the firm.

The track record of recent initial public offerings by mainland advertising firms is mixed.

Clear Media, a unit of US entertainment giant Clear Channel, raised HK$865 million from a December 2001 Hong Kong stock sale but its shares mostly traded below the HK$5.89 offering price until recently. They are now at HK$8.25, up 40 per cent this year and over 20 per cent in the past 16 days.

The other two companies - MediaNation and Media Partners International - fared little better. MediaNation's shares slumped on their Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) debut in January 2002. Media Partners International priced its shares at HK$1.10 during its GEM initial stock offer. Its shares last traded at just 36 HK cents.