Well it looks like the Agricultural Bank of China is inching slowly closer towards an initial public offering. The latest development is that the bank will be looking towards mainland China for its investors and listing only in Shanghai sometime in 2010 as opposed to a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong as previously thought. The bank is also not looking to foreign strategic investors to purchase stakes pre-IPO, instead favoring local financial institutions and conglomerates. Among the interested players include insurer China Life. HSBC is looking towards a Shanghai listing as well, but before it does that the bank wants to purchase a stake in a mainland brokerage house. Reports say that brokerage house is Fujian-based Industrial Securities, a medium-sized mainland brokerage. HSBC would reportedly make the purchase before the broker’s planned IPO. And finally in securities news today, South Korea’s SK Telecom (SKT) is selling its stake in China Unicom back to the Chinese telco for US$1.29 billion after Unicom struck a deal earlier this month with Spain’s Telefonica to purchase US$1 billion worth of each other shares.