Telstra Corp, Australia's biggest telephone company, may consider an initial public offering of SouFun Holdings Ltd, operator of China's biggest real estate Web site.

Telstra Corp, Australia's biggest telephone company, may consider an initial public offering of SouFun Holdings Ltd, operator of China's biggest real estate Web site.

"An IPO is one of the options as we evolve the business," chief executive Sol Trujillo said in an interview in Beijing Wednesday. "Our primary focus is to keep on growing the business."

SouFun may raise $1 billion in a public offering in 2008, the China Daily reported November 22, citing company founder Vincent Mo. Telstra, which bought a controlling stake in SouFun in August for $254 million, aims to boost the Chinese firm's advertising sales fourfold to about $1 billion by 2010, Trujillo said Wednesday. Telstra is seeking to boost advertising revenue to offset a decline in its Australian landline business.

SouFun - Mandarin for "house search" - provides real estate listings in 56 cities in China. On Tuesday, it announced versions of the Web site in English, Japanese and other languages to target people moving to China.

Opportunities exist to expand the Web site into other areas, such as insurance and financing, Trujillo said.

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