Beijing

A Chinese firm became the centre of attention after a clip showing the company stacking a mountain of US$9 million cash on a stage before handing them out in year-end bonuses to its top performers went viral.

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According to local media reports, the event was organised by a crane firm—Henan Mine— in central Henan province. The video that had gone viral on January 17 purportedly showed cash piled up on stage in a pyramid shape and employees walking off with bundles of cash.

It is said that the prizes were so heavy that several people were required to carry them.

The top three best-performing sales managers received five million yuan (US$737,000) each, whereas 30 others got at least one million yuan, the Jiemian News reported citing an unnamed manager from the company’s public relations department.

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“We held a sales year-end meeting on the night of January 17, giving 61 million yuan in total to 40 sales managers,” the person was quoted as saying.

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Apart from that, the company also organised a cash counting competition, in which the employees where they won many 100-yuan bills they could count within a designated period of time, the unnamed employee reportedly said.

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A staggering 12 million yuan were spent in this competition alone, with the fastest note counter getting 157,000 yuan.

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According to several video clips, the money was bound up into bricks of 100,000 yuan.

The event garnered a huge response on social media, with some explicitly calling a PR stunt while others expressing envy.

 â€œI don’t even dare to dream about such a scene,” one person posted on Weibo.

“I can’t understand. They bothered to get all the cash from the bank and count it to give out, and the recipients then need to carry it back to the bank to deposit it. I don’t like such a corporate culture,” another said, according to the South China Morning Post newspaper.

Henan Mine company, founded in 2002, has more than 5,100 employees across 380 offices in China and around the world, according to their official website.

According to its website, they recorded sales revenues of 9.16 billion yuan (US$1.36 billion) in 2022, up by 23 per cent compared with the previous year.

There were no lay-offs from the firm over the past three years despite China’s imposition of strict COVID-19 restrictions. The average salary of company staff has grown by 30 per cent each year, its website said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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