AgBank prepares for Shanghai debut

The Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank), the last of China’s Big Four banks to go public, will launch its IPO on Shanghai’s stock exchange on Thursday, MarketWatch reported. Analysts forecast a stock price rise of between 3% and 12%. Bank officials said that the retail portion of the Hong Kong IPO, which is due to launch on Friday, was almost five times oversubscribed, but AgBank has not yet exercised its overallotment option. If the option is used, AgBank’s total IPO launch could be a record-setting US$22 billion.