Lenovo Group Ltd. (992), the biggest personal computer maker, said Chief Executive Officer Yang Yuanqing will share at least $3 million of his bonus with workers for a second straight year after posting record sales. 
 
 About 10,000 workers will get payments this month to recognize their contributions, Gina Qiao, senior vice president of human resources, said in a memo to some workers. The memo was confirmed by spokesman Jeffrey Shafer, who said the total payment will be about $3.25 million. 
 
 Lenovo posted revenue of $34 billion and PC shipments of 52.4 million units in the 12 months ended March 31 as the company gained market share and expanded sales of smartphones and tablets. The 48-year-old Yang, who gave $3 million from his bonus a year earlier, led the company past Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) in the June quarter. 
 
 “This is quite rare, especially for a chairman of a Chinese company, to use his personal money as a bonus to reward employees,” said Kirk Yang, a managing director at Barclays Plc in Hong Kong who rates the shares overweight. 
 
 Lenovo, which has headquarters in Beijing and Morrisville, North Carolina, rose 0.7 percent to HK$7.55 in Hong Kong trading. The stock has climbed 7.6 percent this year while the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index has dropped 2.1 percent. 
 
 Source: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., poses for a photograph during a pledging conference in Beijing on April 20, 2010. Close Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., poses for a photograph... Read More Close Open Source: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., poses for a photograph during a pledging conference in Beijing on April 20, 2010. 
 
 Payments will be made to Lenovo staff in 20 countries, while about 85 percent of the recipients are in China, Shafer said. Yang spends time in both the Beijing and Morrisville offices, the spokesman said last year. 
 
 Month’s Pay 
 
 “This payment is personally funded by Yuanqing,” Qiao said in the memo. “He believes that he has the responsibility as an owner of the company, and the opportunity as our leader, to ensure all of our employees understand the impact they have on building Lenovo.” 
 
 The average payment of about $325 is almost equal to a month’s pay for a typical city worker in China. The average annual wage of urban workers at private companies last year was 28,752 yuan, the National Bureau of Statistics said in May. That’s equal to about $392 a month. 
 
 Yang was paid $14.6 million last year, including a bonus of $4.23 million and long-term incentive awards of $8.94 million, according to the company’s annual report. Yang holds about 744 million shares of Lenovo, or 7.1 percent of the company’s outstanding stock, as of the end of March, the report said. 
 
 Dell, HP 
 
 Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, received nearly $15.4 million in fiscal 2012 after the company posted a net loss for the year. Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Inc. (DELL), was paid $13.9 million in the year ended Feb. 1 when the company posted lower sales and earnings and its share price declined. 
 
 Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., was paid $14.6 million last year, including a bonus of $4.23 million and long-term incentive awards of $8.94 million, according to the company’s annual report. Close Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., was paid $14.6 million... Read More Close Open Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., was paid $14.6 million last year, including a bonus of $4.23 million and long-term incentive awards of $8.94 million, according to the company’s annual report. 
 
 Lenovo had more than 35,000 employees globally at the end of March. Employees who received the bonus from Yang were mostly those in manufacturing paid on an hourly basis, who are not eligible for other bonus programs or sales commission, Shafer said. 
 
 Other executives to share their bonus include Oleg Deripaska of the world’s largest aluminum producer United Co. Rusal (486), who gave his $3 million bonus for 2012 to 120 employees, UPI reported in July. Simon Wolfson of Next Plc (NXT), the U.K. clothing retailer, awarded his bonus of about $3.7 million to 19,400 staff, the Telegraph reported in April. 
 
 To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Edmond Lococo in Beijing at elococo@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net ||||| It's refreshing to see Lenovo's (HKEx: 992) chatty CEO Yang Yuanqing finally doing something besides boasting about his big plans for the company, with word that he is donating a big chunk of his annual bonus to ordinary employees. I'm a bit too jaded to believe that Yang's donation of US$3 million is a purely selfless act, since he was quite willing to give the media a detailed account of his decision. Still, the latest news comes as a nice break from the usual chatter about new M&A targets and other global aspirations from one of China's most successful tech firms. 
 
 The latest reports say the US$3 million from Yang's bonus check will go to some 10,000 Lenovo workers, ranging from receptionists to production line workers spread across the globe. When all the money is distributed, the average recipient will get the equivalent of a about US$300 each -- not a huge sum but perhaps equating to up to an extra half month's pay for a typical China-based employee. 
 
 It's worth noting that Yang won't exactly suffer too much as a result of his generosity, since his last annual bonus was reportedly worth US$5.2 million, and his net personal income for the year totaled US$14 million. Still, I'm willing to give him credit for making what looks like a sincere effort to thank the many people who have helped to make Lenovo China's first truly world-class tech firm. 
 
 For me personally, the news of Yang's generosity also comes as a nice shift from his usual bluster about his ambitious plans for Lenovo, along with the non-stop rumours about the company's latest acquisition targets. After taking over as Lenovo's CEO in 2009, it was hard to ever go more than a month or two without reading news reports citing Yang discussing his ambition to overtake Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) to become the world's biggest PC seller. 
 
 After finally achieving that goal briefly last year, Yang suddenly changed his tune as sales of traditional PCs started to decline in the face of the rapid rise of smaller, more portable devices including smartphones and tablet PCs. Over the past year, he has shifted his message to say Lenovo's chief rivals are now smartphone and tablet PC giants Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung (Seoul: 005930), which he happily repeats time and again whenever he conducts interviews. 
 
 When Yang isn't talking up his HP- or Apple-chasing dreams, Lenovo is also frequently in the headlines for its voracious appetite for overseas acquisitions. This year alone the company has been in the headlines for a number of potential deals, including a smartphone joint venture with Japan's NEC (Tokyo: 6701) and the potential multibillion-dollar purchase of IBM's (NYSE: IBM) low-end server businesses. Many industry observers have also speculated that Lenovo is likely to make a bid for sputtering smartphone pioneer BlackBerry (Toronto: BB), which put itself up for sale last month. 
 
 All of this returns me to my original point, namely that perhaps Yang is finally turning over a new leaf and preparing to tone down his ambitious talk and let his actions speak for him instead. But that's probably wishful thinking, and I suspect this act of generosity is probably more of a one-time thing. Then we'll soon see Yang return to his previous talk of grandiose plans to become one of the world's top smartphone makers. But at least this one time we're getting to briefly see another side of this outgoing executive who is arguably one of China's most visible global CEOs. 
 
 Bottom line: Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing's US$3 million donation to his employees is likely a one-time act that will be followed by a return to his usual talk of grand plans to overtake Apple and Samsung in smartphones.
– Lenovo's CEO has decided to hand over a hefty chunk of his annual bonus to the workers who helped make the Chinese company the world's biggest personal computer maker, the firm says. For the second year in a row, Yang Yuanqing is sharing more than $3 million with around 10,000 workers, most of them in China, where the $325 or so each worker will receive adds up to almost a month's pay, reports Bloomberg. Yang was paid more than $14 million last year and owns a 7% chunk of the company, so the gesture won't exactly leave him scrambling for change in the couch cushions. But it does look "like a sincere effort to thank the many people who have helped to make Lenovo China's first truly world-class tech firm," writes Doug Young at the South China Morning Post, who's glad for the shift from Yang's "usual bluster" about Lenovo getting ready to overtake Apple and Samsung in smartphones.