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Xiaomi founder Lei Jun earned almost as much as the company last year but pledged to donate it to charity

  • Xiaomi’s annual adjusted net profit for 2018 was 8.6 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion)

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Lei Jun, the chairman and chief executive officer of Xiaomi Corp, speaks during a product launch for the Redmi Note 7 smartphone in Beijing on January 10, 2019. Photo: Bloomberg
Yingzhi Yangin Beijing

The founder of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp received almost as much in compensation last year as the company made in profit.

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Xiaomi said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Wednesday that Lei Jun, its chairman and chief executive, received a one-off compensation of 636.6 million B-class shares for 2018, currently valued at HK$7.5 billion (US$956 million) based on Tuesday’s closing share price.

Xiaomi’s annual adjusted net profit for 2018 was 8.6 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), the company reported last month.

The Class B shares are still controlled by Lei and have not been disposed of, according to the filing made to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

A Xiaomi spokeswoman said the company had no further comment.

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The company said in the filing it was voluntarily identifying Lei as the recipient of the shares “in response to certain news articles published recently”, which had claimed Lei’s compensation last year exceeded the company’s profit.

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