KE Holdings Inc., China's largest real estate brokerage platform, made a major announcement on the first working day of the Year of the Horse. Company co-founders, Chairman and CEO Peng Yongdong and co-founder Shan Yigang, revealed via an internal staff letter that they will jointly donate 10 million Class A ordinary shares of KE Holdings. The after-tax proceeds from this donation will be used to establish a special "Health and Family Guardian Fund," aimed at providing health protection for approximately 500,000 employees and practitioners within the residential services industry. Based on the closing share price on February 23, this donation is valued at approximately 400 million yuan. The project is scheduled to be officially launched within the year.
This announcement comes as KE Holdings released its 2024 annual report, which disclosed that Chairman and CEO Peng Yongdong's total compensation for 2024 reached 400 million yuan, marking another year of exceptionally high executive pay. According to the company's previous financial reports, Peng's total compensation was 474 million yuan in 2022 and 713 million yuan in 2023. Combined compensation for Peng Yongdong and Shan Yigang from 2021 to 2024 exceeded 3.07 billion yuan, setting a record for executive pay in Chinese corporate history and earning them the label of "super-salaried employees." With the 2025 annual report yet to be released, based on average calculations, the two founders' annual income from 2021 to 2025 is estimated to be close to 800 million yuan each.
Following the release of KE Holdings' financial reports, Peng Yongdong has faced widespread public scrutiny each year regarding his substantial compensation package. His individual annual pay is equivalent to the combined annual income of 5,000 real estate agents on the platform. In an era marked by heightened awareness of wealth disparity and a push for greater fairness, the disclosure of such a high compensation figure for a single executive, dwarfing the earnings of thousands of front-line workers, has inevitably sparked dissatisfaction both internally and externally. Consequently, in the weeks leading up to the release of KE Holdings' annual report each year, discussions about Peng's super-high salary flood social media platforms, becoming a national hot topic, with some commentary being particularly harsh and negatively impacting his public image.
The core of the controversy lies in the 3.07 billion yuan in total compensation over four years, which highlights a significant imbalance in income distribution within the industry. Public financial data shows that in 2024, the total commission and compensation pool for agents on and off the KE platform was approximately 41.7 billion yuan. With around 500,000 agents, the average annual income per agent was only about 80,000 yuan. This means Peng Yongdong's 2024 compensation of 401 million yuan alone equated to the combined annual income of 5,000 agents. The two founders' total compensation over four years equals the yearly income of nearly 40,000 agents. Furthermore, KE Holdings' net profit for 2024 declined by 30.8% year-on-year to 4.078 billion yuan. Peng's compensation that year accounted for nearly 10% of the company's annual net profit, a figure far exceeding international peers. For comparison, executive compensation at US real estate brokerage RE/MAX typically constitutes only 3% to 5% of net profit, whereas KE's ratio reached 29.6%, inevitably raising questions from the market and grassroots levels.
In response to the controversy, KE Holdings officially explained that the majority of the two founders' compensation consists of restricted shares granted in May 2022 when the company listed in Hong Kong. These shares were granted to meet the requirements of the weighted voting rights structure and are accounted for under "share-based compensation" using the straight-line amortization method. They are not traditional cash salaries. The company emphasized that Peng Yongdong has never sold or transferred these shares, meaning the compensation has not been liquidated. Objectively, this compensation structure is a compliant arrangement for a Hong Kong listing, designed to incentivize core management and align their interests with the company's long-term development. However, against the backdrop of a declining property market, fluctuating agent incomes, and increasing survival pressures, these financial figures fail to bridge the psychological gap felt by front-line workers. The stark contrast between "executives receiving sky-high pay" and "front-line workers earning meager incomes" has been magnified, ultimately leading to collective criticism from agents and becoming a widely discussed topic online.
The cumulative donation of 840 million yuan is not merely a crisis management tactic but represents a proactive response by the company to grassroots concerns and a restructuring of corporate responsibility. In December 2025, Peng Yongdong made his first sale of 9 million personally held Class A shares of KE Holdings, dedicating the entire after-tax proceeds of approximately 440 million yuan to public welfare. Half was allocated to rental assistance for new university graduates, and the other half to improving health and medical support for residential service workers and their families. On February 24, 2026, as KE Holdings and its subsidiary Lianjia approach their 25th anniversary, Peng Yongdong and Shan Yigang joined forces again to donate 10 million Class A ordinary shares, valued at about 400 million yuan, to establish the specialized "Health and Family Guardian Fund," creating a systematic support framework.
On a deeper level, the sequence of events—controversy over excessive executive pay followed by a substantial donation—signals a major transformation within China's real estate brokerage industry. It marks a shift from a "scale-first" mentality to a "service-provider-centric" approach. Over the past two decades, the industry experienced rapid, often unregulated growth, with competition centered on scale expansion, store count, and market share. Front-line agents often worked under conditions of "no base salary, high pressure, and low security," with the industry prioritizing performance over human welfare, neglecting the dignity and rights of service providers. As the industry leader, KE Holdings had not fully escaped this pattern. The recent donation initiative signifies that KE is beginning to redefine corporate value, suggesting that success is measured not only by profit and market capitalization but also by ensuring every worker is respected and protected.
This transformation aligns with the current trend toward high-quality development in the real estate sector. Since 2026, national ministries and local governments have introduced numerous new property policies aimed at optimizing housing provident fund rules, providing home purchase subsidies, and reducing transaction taxes to stimulate market activity. These measures also demand higher standards of service规范 and integrity from industry participants. KE Holdings recently launched a "Three Must-Dos, Six Prohibitions" service pledge, which has been signed by over 100,000 agents committing to a neutral market perspective and standardized service behavior. The 840 million yuan donation to establish a protection fund is a direct response to this trend, recognizing that only by treating service providers well can service quality be enhanced, market trust rebuilt, and the industry transition from "traffic competition" to "service competition."
Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that the 840 million yuan donation is a starting point, not an end goal. Compared to the nearly 4 billion yuan in total income the two founders are projected to earn over five years, the donation amount is not substantial. Furthermore, the upcoming 2025 annual report may still reveal惊人 executive compensation figures. While the founders' donations can partially alleviate the difficulties faced by some grassroots workers and benefit certain groups, they do not fundamentally address the core issue of imbalanced income distribution within the industry. The reality behind the 3.07 billion yuan compensation over four years—potentially nearing 4 billion over five years—reflects imperfections in the executive pay distribution mechanisms of platform-based companies and the weak bargaining power and income instability of front-line service providers.
Genuine industry progress requires not only philanthropic gestures from executives but also institutional reforms. These include raising agents' base salaries and commission shares, improving basic benefits such as social security and pensions, establishing stable career advancement pathways, and reducing unreasonable performance pressure. The goal should be to enable front-line service providers to truly share in the fruits of industry development, rather than merely serving as tools for platform performance.
Additionally, this incident offers a critical lesson for all platform-based companies in China: the design of executive compensation must balance incentivization and compliance with considerations for social equity and the perceptions of grassroots employees, avoiding public controversy triggered by excessively high figures. Corporate social responsibility should not be merely a reactive crisis management tool but should be integrated into daily operations through long-term mechanisms that safeguard the rights and interests of front-line workers, achieving a win-win scenario where the company develops, executives benefit, and the grassroots gain.
For the real estate brokerage industry, KE Holdings' actions set a benchmark. In the future, more companies may follow this trend, prioritizing the protection of front-line service providers and steering the industry toward a more规范, fair, and sustainable development path. The 3.07 billion yuan compensation over four years serves as a warning about industry distribution imbalances. The cumulative 840 million yuan in donations signals a reconstruction of corporate responsibility and a transformational shift. Donations amounting to hundreds of millions represent a victory for the awakening of grassroots workers' rights and a critical turning point for high-quality industry development. Moving forward, only through continuously improving distribution mechanisms and strengthening grassroots protections—ensuring every residential service worker can strive with dignity and security—can China's real estate brokerage industry truly shed its "low-end intermediary" label and become a respected modern service sector. This is the most profound value and significance behind Peng Yongdong and Shan Yigang's 840 million yuan donation.
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