(Yicai Global) Oct. 28 -- Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, China's first company dedicated to running high-speed trains, has filed for what could be the country's largest initial public offering in almost a decade.

The company plans to issue nearly 7.6 billion shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, or 15 percent of its total share capital, it said in a filing published online on Oct. 25 by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

The document did not disclose how much the firm intends to raise, but revealed that all of the proceeds will go towards a more than 65 percent stake in Beijing-Fuzhou Railway Passenger-Dedicated Railway Anhui -- worth CNY50 billion (USD7.1 billion) -- as the company looks to expand its rail network.

Institutional investors believe the IPO could raise as much as CNY30 billion, with the rest of the funds for the purchase coming from company coffers. China's biggest IPO to date was in 2010, when Agricultural Bank of China raised USD22.1 billion.

Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway earned CNY9.5 billion in the first three quarters of this year, more than its average annual profit over the three years prior. Sales tallied CNY25 billion over the first nine months, compared with CNY31.2 billion in all of 2018.

The firm broke ground on its passenger oriented railroad in 2008 and opened it for traffic in June 2011. The 1,318 kilometer long track supports trains traveling up to 350 kilometers an hour and can transport people between the two cities in around four and a half hours.

As of Sept. 30, 2019, some 991,900 journeys carrying more than a billion passengers had traversed the railroad.

Editor: James Boynton