Pan American Silver profit falls; cuts jobs, pay

(Reuters) - Pan American Silver Corp (PAA.TO) posted a lower-than-expected quarterly profit, hurt by falling silver and zinc prices, and said its senior executives will take a 10 percent pay cut, while axing 500 jobs.

The silver mining company earned $6.4 million, or 8 cents per basic share for the third quarter, compared with $23.9 million, or 31 cents per basic share, a year ago.

Quarterly adjusted net income, before items, was 11 cents a share.

Chief Executive Geoff Burns said in a statement that quarterly results were hurt by decline in base metal and silver prices that started in the middle of the third quarter.

The company, which has operating mines in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, said it would axe 500 jobs and would rollback 10 percent of wages for all senior executives, due to fall in silver prices.

Silver normally tracks gold, which has lost 30 percent in value since hitting a record due to weaker oil prices, a firm dollar and losses in equities that forced investors to cash in to cover losses. Silver spiked to a 27-year high of $21.24 in March when gold struck a record above $1,000.

Pan American said it has deferred almost all of its greenfield exploration programs, significantly reduced its brownfield exploration and canceled all "discretionary" capital expenditures.

Shares of the company were trading down 54 Canadian cents at C$11.70 in morning trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, after touching a year-low of C$11.61 earlier in the session.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)