A billionaire Chinese hedge fund manager has been jailed for five and a half years for market manipulation in one of the country’s highest-profile financial crimes prosecutions since a market rout in 2015.
Xu Xiang, an investment guru who used to be compared with Carl Icahn of the US, led a loose-knit group of hedge fund managers from the port city of Ningbo known as the “Limit-up Kamikaze Squad” because of their penchant for high-stakes bets.
A court in the eastern city of Qingdao said yesterday that Xu had conspired with the controlling shareholders of 13 companies to release favourable information that boosted share prices, before dumping their holdings in block trades from which both parties benefited.