Tencent Holdings Limited has announced that the company's board of directors has decided to give about 1.01 million new shares to 184 employees as awards and the total value of this incentive program is about HKD68 million.

According to the terms of this program, the shares will be purchased by an independent trustee and the costs will be paid by Tencent. The independent trustee should purchase these new shares by cash and after the allotment of these new shares, the independent trustee should hold these shares for the awarded persons though a trust.

The company says that the reason for launching this incentive program is to better take advantage of the company's resources, to award those staff who make contributions to the company and to retain talents for the continuous management and development of the company.

The detailed list for this award program has not been revealed by Tencent and the company only says that the board of directors will select qualified persons at certain times to participate in the program. As for the coverage of the qualified persons, Tencent says that it includes any employee in the group who has made or will make contributions to the growth and development of the group or any investment entity of the group, no matter the if person is a full-time or part-time employee; administrative staff and senior employees; directors, including executive, non-executive and independent non-executive directors; and experts, consultants and agents in any company of the group.