NEW YORK, Dec 7 - Translation company Language Line Services Holdings Inc hopes to go public in an initial public offering that would raise as much as $400 million.

California-based Language Line, which provides on-demand translation services for more than 170 languages, has over 10,000 clients including about 60 percent of the Fortune 500 companies and all of the top 20 emergency 911 response centers in the United States, it said in a regulatory filing.

Language Line's investors include private equity firms ABRY Partners and New York Life Capital Partners, and Merrill Lynch Capital Corporation.

The filing did not give details of the offering, but Language Line said it would use its share of the proceeds to pay a dividend to its parent company Language Line Holdings LLC and to repay loans.

The company posted revenue of $227.5 million in the nine months that ended Sept. 30, up 11.2 percent from $204.6 million a year ago. The firm posted a net loss of $44.2 million, up nearly 650 percent from $5.9 million in the same period a year ago.

Selling, general, and administrative costs more than doubled to $91.9 million from $40.2 million a year ago. The firm said in the filing that it expects its SG&A expenses to increase as it continues to invest in corporate infrastructure and incur additional expenses associated with being a publicly-traded company.

Language Line plans to list on the Nasdaq. The company's underwriters are Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.VX), and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N). (Reporting by Clare Baldwin; editing by Gunna Dickson)

California Investment Merrill Lynch Morgan Stanley