Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Agria Corp., a Chinese provider of corn seeds, sheep breeding and tree seedlings, and an owner may raise as much as $283 million from a New York Stock Exchange initial public offering, according to a regulatory filing.

The Beijing-based company and a firm controlled by its Chairman Lai Guanglin and another director will sell a combined 17.15 million American depositary receipts at $14.50 to $16.50 each, the filing said. The ADRs are equivalent to a 27 percent stake, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Agria is selling 12 million ADRs itself to expand production and research.

China is the world's second-largest corn producer after the U.S. with a 19 percent share of global production in 2005, according to the filing. Growing meat consumption as household incomes are rising is helping drive 4.3 percent average annual growth for corn production in China. The crop is primarily used as animal feed.

Mutton production in China expanded at an annual average of 9.7 percent between 2000 and 2005, raising its share of total meat consumption in the country by 2.2 percentage points to 6.4 percent by the end of the period.

Agria derived half of its 489.7 million yuan ($65 million) revenue last year from corn seeds and another 39 percent from sheep breeding, the filing said.

Its profit increased 50 percent to 253.9 million yuan, or 5.08 yuan per ADR, last year over the previous year, it said.

Credit Suisse Group is arranging the share sale, which may be expanded by almost 2.6 million new ADRs, or nearly 15 percent, to cover excess demand and stabilize the share price.

Origin Agritech Ltd., a Beijing-based researcher, developer and marketer of hybrid crop seeds, gained 58 percent since its $21 million Nasdaq Stock Market IPO in March 2004.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bei Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 24, 2007 22:39 EDT