"We are in the final stage of preparation. We should be able to list our shares on Nasdaq in the third quarter of this year." said Chang Hui-chi, spokeswoman of Digital United.

But Chang declined to disclose the number of issues to be sold via its mother company Digital United Holding Limited. Digital United, the second largest Internet service provider in Taiwan, offers access services, largely dial-up, to nearly a half-million subscribers here.

The company's major shareholders include the semi-official Institute for Information Industry, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Asia Global Crossing, and Taicom Capital Ltd, Chang said.

In February, Taiwan's largest broadband Internet service provider GigaMedia Ltd was listed on Nasdaq. Other leading Internet companies here, including Kimo.com owned by Sysware Corp, and Yam Digital Technology Co, have also expressed interest in selling tranches on the US stock market.

Strong demand for EADSC IPO
Demand for shares in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company is strong from both private and institutional investors, EADS co-chairman Rainer Hertrich, said in an interview published in business daily Handelsblatt on Monday.

Hertrich said: "Interest in the stock with both private and institutional investors is very high", despite apparent initial caution. Hertrich told the newspaper that it was too early to say whether the initial public offering of EADS, formed from the merger of Aerospatiale Matra of France, the DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA) unit of German-US DaimlerChrysler and Construcciones Aeronauticas SA (CASA) of Spain, was already oversubscribed.

But the newspaper quoted banking sources as saying that the lead-managers expected the offering to be "sharply oversubscribed" when the subscription period closes at the end of this week. That means that investors are expected to apply for many more shares than are actually on offer. EADS is currently taking an investors roadshow around 14 different countries, seeking to raise demand for the share offering from investors.

It was still unclear, however, whether the share would be listed in the Gemran blue-chip DAX and the Euro Stoxx indices, Hertrich said. Already last week, the Paris stock exchange operator said that EADS would replace Aerospatiale Matra in the leading CAC-40 index. It will also be in the Spanish Ibex index.

-- AFP