By Elzio Barreto and Denny Thomas
HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's No.2 e-commerce company, JD.com Inc., awarded CEO and founder Richard Liu a one-off bonus as the company prepared for its U.S. IPO, booking share-based expenses of $591 million (349.94 million pounds), according to a securities filing.
The award was worth $1.78 billion at the IPO price, equalling the amount JD.com and some of its shareholders raised in the biggest U.S. listing by a Chinese company. It was granted "in consideration of his past and future services", according to the prospectus.
JD.com is the second mainland company to lavish its senior executives with major share-based bonuses ahead of a stock market flotation in the past month.
The deal was priced at $19 per share, above the $16 to $18 per share marketing range for the IPO.
Billionaire Liu was awarded 93.78 million immediately vesting restricted share units, more than the entire number of shares in the JD.com IPO.
The company itself offered about 69 million American Depositary Shares (ADS), while shareholders, including hedge fund Tiger Global Management and Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies, sold another 24.68 million ADS.
The JD.com special compensation follows a similar payment to two senior executives of China's biggest pork producer WH Group Ltd, who last month received a combined $600 million share-based compensation for "recognition and reward" as part of the takeover of U.S.-based Smithfield Foods Inc.
(Editing by Stephen Coates)