Subscriptions will open next Thursday for the initial public offerings of Huayi Brothers Media Corp and eight other companies on China's upcoming Nasdaq-style market.

They are the third batch of companies that will list on the Growth-Enterprise Market and plan to sell a combined 192 million shares to raise a total of 2.1 billion yuan (US$307 million), according to their prospectuses.

Huayi will raise the most at 620 million yuan.

These firms are involved in media and culture, agriculture, energy, electronics and pharmacy.

Huayi is China's largest privately owned film company and is held by more than 50 domestic movie stars and filmmakers such as Feng Xiaogang, Huang Xiaoming and Luo Haiqiong.

The other eight firms include Sichuan Jifeng Agricultural Machinery Chain Co, Hangzhou Huaxing Chuangye Communication Technology Co and Bode Energy Equipment Co.

The GEM, expected to be launched as early as this month, will help promising startups to raise money. Small firms account for 99 percent of all companies in China.

The first batch of 10 firms seeking to list on the GEM drew a combined 784 billion yuan in subscriptions last month, and the second group of nine firms will open subscriptions next Tuesday.

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