HON Hai Precision Industry Co. is racing ahead with an initial public offering of its automated factory division that may become the biggest listing debut on the mainland since 2015.

Foxconn Industrial Internet Co., a unit of Apple Inc.’s most important assembly partner, won approval Thursday to list in Shanghai about a month after publishing a prospectus that outlined plans to spend 27.3 billion yuan (US$4 billion) on expansions into cutting-edge technology.

That speed underscores the anticipation around the Taiwanese company that embodies billionaire Terry Gou’s ambition of moving beyond assembling PCs and phones for the world’s top electronic brands.

Known as FII, the business could command a valuation of as much as 400 billion yuan by some estimates — on par with Sony Corp. With sales of 355 billion yuan in 2017, its revenue is about the same as Walt Disney Co. or HP Inc.

The fundraising could be the 11th largest on the mainland and would be one of the highest-profile tech listings in Shenzhen or Shanghai in years, as the government courts a long under-represented sector.

“The size of the initial public offering [IPO] should be pretty close to what’s disclosed in the prospectus,” said Amy Lin, a Shanghai-based analyst with Capital Securities Corp.

Lin estimates the stock could command a share-price multiple of 15 to 19 times earnings for its debut.

Foxconn, which makes smartphones, cloud computing equipment and robots, wants the 27.3 billion yuan to fund projects including artificial intelligence and 5G wireless technologies.

The security regulator has been taking steps to reform the stock exchange listing mechanism in an effort to invigorate China’s capital market and foster the new economy.

The regulator will reform the listing mechanism and give more support to “new technology, new industry, new industry forms and new business models,” Wednesday’s Securities Daily cited Jiang Yang, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, as saying. (SD-Agencies)