The timing was fortuitous. China’s Internet industry was booming and many of the companies were flocking to the U.S. market to go public. IMeigu’s lone fund has returned 55 percent from its inception, according to data compiled by Bloomberg through the end of March. (That’s triple the gains in the CSI Overseas China Internet index over that time.) Today, the hedge fund employs a half-dozen people and manages what Liang will only say is a figure in the “tens of millions of dollars.”
As the Dangdang and Jumei disputes drag on, Liang doesn’t rule out taking on other corporate executives. More and more Internet firms are pulling their shares out of New York and looking to list back in Shanghai or Shenzhen, a trend driven in part by the Chinese government’s push to support the technology industry.
For Liang, raising opposition to these deals isn’t just about eking out a few extra dollars here and there. It is, as he says, “a test of our survival.” For if companies threaten to exit the U.S. whenever their stock prices take a dive, iMeigu’s market niche would eventually disappear, taking with it, perhaps, China’s nascent activist-investor movement.