Wednesday February 25, 01:08 PM
Chairman of China's Ping An 'skips 2008 pay'
SHANGHAI (AFP) - The chairman of China's Ping An Insurance Group will give up his salary for 2008, the company said Wednesday, after the firm's disastrous investment in ailing European financial group Fortis (Amsterdam: FORAL.AS - news) .
Peter Ma Mingzhe, who leads the country's second largest life insurer, decided to forgo his pay and bonuses to help Ping An "ride out the hard times together with the company and society," company spokesman Sheng Ruisheng told AFP.
Ma is one of China's highest paid executives. In 2007, he earned 66.2 million yuan (9.7 million dollars) before taxes -- 33 times more than Yang Chao, chairman of China Life, the country's biggest life insurer by premiums.
"The company saw significant changes in external and internal conditions in 2008 and the financial crisis has impacted our performance," Sheng said, declining to say whether other firm executives would forego their salaries.
Ping An, which has a five percent stake in Fortis, has already booked a loss of about 2.3 billion dollars due to the marked down value of its holding in embattled Fortis.
It invested a total of 3.5 billion dollars in Fortis shares, but its investment has almost entirely been wiped out since the embattled group was dismantled by the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments late last year.
The investment has draw harsh criticism at home and bruised the company's image, particularly among public investors.
"That's slipping away by casting off a cloak. The 'zero salary' is aimed at covering up Ma's responsibility for the huge losses," said one post on the stock investment website www.eastmoney.com.
Late last year, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a notice warning the five biggest Chinese insurers under its supervision against paying excessively high wages to senior executives.
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