Kim Dotcom, the owner of the shuttered Megaupload file sharing site, has plans to launch an initial public offering for his new site, Mega, in the next 18 months. The IPO is seen as an effort to gain more legality in his operations which has been shut down by police over charges of copyright violations.

To push the planned public listing, Mr Dotcom is seeking a New Zealand-based chief finance officer since the IPO could be either in New Zealand or Australia. He posted the ad for the CFO in the Trade Me Web site.

He launched Mega in January and accepted registrations for the new file sharing site which allows users to upload, download and share files such as music and video. It competes with similar services such as Dropbox and YouTube.

Subscribers to Mega's premium service could pay for the subscription through Bitcoin, an online currency not linked to any country's economy.

The new Web site registered thousands of hits hours after its roll out.

The 38-year-old Mr Dotcom is battling extradition to the U.S. where he has been indicted by prosecutors of accused Megaupload of earning over $175 million in criminal proceeds from the illegal exchange of films, music, books and software files which could be in breach of American copyright regulations. Megaupload, prior to its closing, had a 4 per cent share of Internet traffic.

He suffered a setback in battling the extradition request when a New Zealand court ruled on Monday that the U.S. does not need to hand over all its evidence against Mr Dotcom to face online piracy, fraud and money laundering charges in the U.S.

The decision reversed a lower court ruling that mandated the FBI to disclosed all evidence against Mr Dotcom who was released on bail in February.

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