Sony executives give up bonuses after losses
As electronics sales suffer, management to forgo benefits worth up to 50 per cent of annual pay
Sony executives will give up their bonuses after firm's main electronics business was unprofitable for a second year.
The board backed a proposal from chief executive Kazuo Hirai that management forgo bonuses worth 30 per cent to 50 per cent of their annual pay in the year to March 31, Sony spokeswoman Mami Imada said this week.
She declined to specify the amount of compensation being reduced.
Hirai pledged to revive Sony's electronics operation by cutting 10,000 jobs and shifting away from the unprofitable television unit after he took the top job in April last year.
He is expanding an initiative from last year when he and his predecessor, Howard Stringer, did not get bonuses.
About 40 executives are returning the bonuses that were scheduled to be paid after the general shareholders meeting in June, according to Yu Kikuchi, a Sony spokeswoman.
Sony reported its first annual net profit in five years last week, helped by one-time gains from asset sales and a weaker yen. The company did not say how much the electronics unit lost.
Net income was probably 40 billion yen (HK$3.2 billion) in the year to March 31, compared with a net loss of 456.7 billion yen a year earlier, the firm said in an earnings preview on April 26.
Selling properties and stock holdings generated about US$2 billion in profit for Sony amid losses in its television business and mobile-phone unit.
Games, cameras and mobile devices are central to Hirai's plan to revive the consumer electronics sales after losing ground to Apple and Samsung Electronics.
