Two CEOs who have resigned will top the top 40 public company payroll list in 2022 thanks to their long-term contracts. This emerges from an analysis of the remuneration reports by the news agency Reuters. Ex-AdidasAccording to calculations by the Reuters news agency, boss Kasper Rorsted (61) received a total of 15.37 million euros thanks to a 12 million euro severance payment. The former Volkswagen-Boss Herbert Diess (64) has his salary paid after his resignation in the summer until his contract expires in October 2025. Last year he came up with 11.83 million euros.
Diess’ successor Oliver Blume (54) is only sixth in the ranking of active Dax bosses with 7.39 million euros. It is led by Deutsche Börse boss Theodor Weimer (63), whose remuneration more than doubled to 11.53 (2021: 5.64) million euros thanks to the payment of a tranche of long-term bonuses. A total of three incumbent Dax bosses earned more than ten million euros. They were next to Weimer bmwCEO Oliver Zipse (59; 10.87 million) and the only female leader of a Dax company, Belen Garijo (62) from the chemical and pharmaceutical group Merck, which, with 10.53 million euros, achieved a double-digit million salary for the second time in a row.
The “poorest” Dax bosses work for Zalando. With 78,000 euros each, the company founders and co-bosses of the online retailer, Robert Gentz (39) and David Schneider (40), are at the bottom end of the remuneration ranking. There were no bonuses for them. But the mini-salary is put into perspective when looking at 2021: They had received Zalando shares worth 45.5 million euros each from the exercise of stock options from the years surrounding the IPO.
Post boss Frank Appel (61), who was still at the top of the salary list in 2021 with 11.89 million euros after his long-term bonuses were due, had to make the biggest cuts among the top earners in the Dax. With 6.99 million, it was only enough for eighth place in 2022. Winners and losers among the Dax bosses balance each other out. 19 managers earned more, 18 less, one earned the same salary as a year earlier. Biotech supplier Qiagen has not yet released a compensation report.
Auto industry is the most lucrative
On average, it still earns best in the auto industry. The “Top 7” includes Zipse, Blume and Mercedes-Benz boss Ola Källenius (53; 7.09 million), the bosses of all three major car manufacturers. The new VW CEO received flower for his “side job” at the sports car subsidiary Porsche AG 2022 no extra salary. The millions in bonuses that the Porsche board members were promised for the successful IPO will only be paid out gradually over the next few years, depending on how the share develops.
Some Dax bosses can hope for significantly more money in the next few years. lag SAP-Boss Christian Klein (42) 2022 with a total remuneration of 4.89 million euros still in the middle, he has earned entitlements to long-term bonuses of 5.5 million euros in that year alone. The “salary cap” that most Dax companies have collected for their board members is particularly high for him at up to 34 million euros. Now that things are going much better at Deutsche Bank, CEO Christian Sewing (52) can also expect significant salary increases. He only received 4.39 (2021: 3.87) million euros for the past year. However, if all deferred bonuses are paid out as planned, it could go as high as 8.99 million.
Different interpretation of legal regulations on remuneration reports
The values refer to the “remuneration granted and owed” including the pension contributions that companies pay for their bosses. In addition to the base salary, this includes the annual bonuses that managers are entitled to for their performance in 2022, as well as the long-term bonuses from previous years that were due. Where the remuneration reports deviate from the usual presentation, the amounts are calculated on a comparable basis.
The uniform tables according to the Corporate Governance Code (DCGK) were replaced by a legal regulation in 2021, which is interpreted differently. The companies did their duty, says compensation expert Regine Siepmann from the consulting firm hkp. But the comprehensibility and comparability fell by the wayside. “The aim of the second European shareholder rights directive and its German implementation was missed.”