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Property tycoon clarifies hefty salary

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-04 18:01

Ren Zhiqiang. [File photo]

BEIJING: Chinese real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang is entitled to a pre-tax sum of 7.074 million yuan ($1.04 million) in yearly salary for 2009.

Ren, however, is said to have got about one tenth of it thus far, according to a statement posted on the website of Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The move is meant to shade the spotlight Ren has rekindled because of publicity of his fatty yearly salary after Huayuan Property Co, Ltd (Huayuan), with headquarters in Beijing, disclosed annual business reports Monday.

Huayuan, a state-owned real estate plc, said in the statement that its president Ren Zhiqiang's yearly salary of 2009 was composed of two parts: a 4.545-million-yuan bonus given for his performance in 2008 and an extra 2.529 million yuan allotted to him for a host of other reasons, including tenure and unspent vacation.

According to the statement, the yearly salary for tenure of Huayuan's president was 3.2 million yuan which was examined and adopted by the stockholders' meeting held Oct 28, 2008. ?This sum was lowered to 2.48 million yuan beginning early 2009 because of the global economic downturn.

Bonus fund could be drawn accordingly after the return-on-asset ratio goes beyond 10 percent according to the corporate administrative measures regarding bonus fund, but 15 percent of the bonus fund?drawn will be used to award president of the company.

Huayuan chalked up 404 million yuan in net profits in 2008, with the ratio for return on assets exceeding 20 percent in that year. ?And the management of Huayuan decided to retain 75 percent of the 40.4 million yuan bonus fund and redistributed as bonus in 2009, said the statement.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission Beijing Xicheng District Branch, the 100 percent shareholder of Huayuan, evaluated Huayua's work performance and approved that Ren could get no more than 700,000 yuan for the year 2009.

The remaining sum the company has owed Ren has been placed in arrears and will be paid to him based on appraisal of overall performance upon his expiration of office, according to the statement.

The net profit of Huayuan plunged 15 percent year-on-year to 344 million yuan in 2009. The profit per share stood at 0.44 yuan, slipping 35 percent than a year earlier, said Huayuan's annual business report.

The company's shares closed lower?Thursday at 9.28 yuan per share,?down 0.11 percent, compared with 9.29 yuan on the previous close.

Ren is well-known for his candor. He is known to have said "I just build for the prosperous" and advised young people with limited income to rent houses for habitation instead of home purchases.