HA NOI (Biz Hub)  — Senior executives and management may receive shares from the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) at reduced interest this year, Mobile World Investment Corporation (MWG) proposed at its shareholder meeting yesterday.

The total amount of ESOP bonus shares will be calculated according to the company's profit growth for 2016 instead of according to this year's plan.

For example, if this year's profit growth is above 10 per cent, ESOP share ratio is the profit growth multiplying by 0.1.

The total amount of ESOP shares will reach the maximum of 3 per cent in the total number of floating shares on the stock market, which is now more than 146.6 million shares.

MWG will reduce the number of bonus shares by one-fifth if the growth of MWG share price between 2016 and 2015 is lower than the growth of VN Index between these two years, which is defined at 15 per cent.

The price for each ESOP share is the lowest between VND10,000 per share and half of the market price – which is equal to the average closing price within 90 days before the issuance date. Bonus shares are forbidden from being transferred in four years.

Tran Duc Tai, MWG's director general, said that the number of management-level executives who received ESOP shares last year was more than 800, and that number is expected to increase to 1,100.

He said that the company will differentiate between those who want to receive bonus cash and those who want to receive bonus shares in order to reduce the ratio of ESOP shares compared to the company's total floating shares.

The company's shop managers will be the ones that receive bonus cash instead of bonus shares and total bonus could reach VND200 billion (US$8.9 million), Tai said, and added that the bonus is necessary to recognise their efforts in achieving last year's growth.

Last year, the company earned revenue of VND25.2 trillion ($1.1 billion) and a net profit of VND1.1 trillion ($47.8 million), an increase of 59 per cent and 60 per cent from 2014's figures.

MWG may issue ESOP bonus shares for executives and key managers in December of this year with the number of bonus shares being equal to 5 per cent of the company's current floating shares.

Of the bonus shares for last year's performance, 7.14 million shares are newly issued and 218,700 shares are re-acquired stocks.

Bonus shares for last year's performance are forbidden from being transferred for two years.

This year, MWG plans to earn a revenue of VND34 trillion ($1.5 billion) and a net profit of VND1.4 trillion ($61.7 million), an increase of 35 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively, from last year's numbers. — VNS