Sony execs to forgo bonuses after electronics unit losses

Executives at Sony Electronics will be giving up their bonuses for a second straight year, after its main electronics business was unprofitable.

Mami Imada, a Tokyo-based spokesperson for the company, told Bloomberg on Wednesday the management will forgo bonuses worth 30 percent to 50 percent of their annual pay in the year ending March, in a company-backed proposal by CEO Kazuo Hirai.

However, she declined to specify the amount of compensation being reduced.

About 40 executives, including Hirai, are forgoing their bonuses which were scheduled to be paid after the general shareholders meeting in June, Yu Kikuchi, another Sony spokesperson noted.

After taking the CEO post in April last year, Hirai had pledged to revive Sony's electronics operations by cutting 10,000 jobs and shifting away from the unprofitable television unit. He had been expanding the initiative from last year when the both he and his predecessor Howard Stringer did not get bonuses.

Sony expects its net income to be 40 billion yen (US$410 million) in the year ending 31 March, compared to a net loss of 456.7 billion yen (US$4.7 billion) from a year earlier, according to a preliminary earnings statement released by the company on April 25, 2013.