China Boom-to-Bust Concerns Show in Agricultural Bank Slide

Kerry Stokes made his first billion dollars operating television stations and selling dump trucks in his native Australia. Now, he’s betting a chunk of that fortune on a bank that operates in the backwaters of rural China.

Stokes became one of the cornerstone investors in Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., whose July 2010 initial public offering was the world’s largest, raising $22 billion. Investors such as Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing and the sovereign wealth funds of Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore joined Stokes, 70, in wagering that the bank will benefit from the rapid development of China’s agrarian inland areas, where growth is already outstripping that of the wealthy coastal cities, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its December issue. They agreed to maintain a stake for at least one year.