Suning Suspends Equity Incentive Plan

Chinese electronics retailer Suning has published a notice that the company will suspend its equity incentive plan made in July 2008.

This equity incentive plan, which covers 43.76 million stock options, is the first equity incentive plan approved by Suning. Sun Weimin, president of Suning, says that the company will still launch equity incentive plans in the future, but the company will consider the overall environment and an appropriate opportunity. He says the company pays great attention to the stability of its management group and the suspension of the equity incentive plan is decided by the change of the market and the ongoing financial crisis.

At the end of July 2008, Suning approved an equity incentive plan to issue 43.76 million stock options to its senior managers and staff with special contributions, including Suning's president Sun Weimin and executive president for North China Fan Zhijun. According to the plan, Suning will enable staff who received the stock options to buy its shares at the price of CNY58 per share and the valid period is five years.

However, Suning says because of the significant changes in China's economic situation and in the domestic stock market, the former equity incentive plan cannot see an incentive effect, so the company decided to suspend the plan. At the same time, the equity incentive plan is an important part of the company's talent strategy, so the company will launch the plan again at an appropriate time.

By December 31, 2008, the share price of Suning hovered at CNY17.91 per share.