The owner of a Chinese company gave his staff $9 million in bonuses and made them grab it themselves from a giant mountain of cash

A Chinese company that manufactures cranes went viral after its owner gave out $9 million in bonuses, doling out the cash rewards from a mountain of money.

Cui Peijun, the founder and owner of Henan Mine, celebrated a bumper crop of sales in 2022 by distributing $740,000 per person to the company's top five sales managers, a company spokesperson told Chinese media outlet Jiemian News.

Another 35 sales managers received bonuses between $150,000 and $700,000 each. These were distributed during a glitzy ceremony on January 17 held just before the Chinese New Year, the spokesperson said.

Social media posts about the cash-filled extravaganza went viral on Weibo, China's version of Twitter. The topic thread about the cash bonuses — akin to a subreddit — garnered more than 180 million views in January, per data seen by Insider.

Videos show employees wearing red scarves struggling to carry the bundles of cash as they walked off-stage. Some clips circulating on Weibo also showed Cui announcing that several employees would need to earn their bonuses by downing around half a pint of baijiu. This is a hard liquor that has an alcohol content of up to 60%.

"All right, waiters, let's prepare for every person baijiu, 250 milliliters," a presenter said after Cui's announcement.

(L: A sales manager struggles to carry his cash bonus off the stage, R: Cui gives a thumbs up as he oversees the bonus distribution. Screenshot/Weibo)

A company spokesperson told Chinese media outlets that the drinking was just a bit of celebratory fun and that employees were not penalized for not finishing the drink. When asked if taxes applied to the bonuses, the spokesperson told local outlet Upstream News: "Some were before tax, some were after tax."

Henan Mine's publicity manager, Feng Xiaobei, said on Tuesday that calls to the company's human resources department have skyrocketed since footage of the awards ceremony went public.

"The calls to the HR department have not stopped until now," he told The Paper, a Chinese state-funded media outlet.

Feng added that the company welcomes all applications to work there. Henan Mine now needs to hire aggressively, Feng told The Paper — because orders for their products are flooding in after the video went viral on Weibo.

Henan Mine has been doing well despite the economic troubles that have plagued China's construction industry for the last year. In 2022, Henan Mine earned $1.36 billion, per Jiemian News. This was a 22% increase from 2021, the outlet reported.

In 2020, the company saw $844 million in annual sales, per the company's official website.

Henan Mine did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Ref: The owner of a Chinese company gave his staff $9 million in bonuses and made them grab it themselves from a giant mountain of cash (insider,wionews)