Mercedes boss Ola Källenius (54), with a salary of 12.74 million euros, is the top earner among the leaders of the largest listed companies in Germany ascended. The Finn overtook Deutsche Börse boss Theodor Weimer (64) in 2023, but with 10.60 million euros he was just ahead of Belen Garijo (63). Merck (10.53 million) remains. According to an analysis by the Reuters news agency based on the remuneration reports of the 40 DAX companies, these CEOs are the only three to exceed the ten million euro mark. Both Källenius and Weimer benefited primarily from the fact that they were paid out long-term bonuses from previous years last year.
Because the fixed salaries for board members usually only make up a fraction of the remuneration. The lion’s share goes to bonuses for the performance of the past year and to bonuses that cover a period of three to four years. The figures refer to the “remuneration granted and owed” including the pension contributions that the companies pay for their bosses. Where the compensation reports deviate from the usual presentation, the amounts are calculated in a comparable manner.
Bjørn Gulden: secret front runner
The six top earners include all three CEOs from the auto industry, who earned a lot in the Corona years because they hardly had to give discounts due to the shortage of parts. This is now reflected in the salaries of Källenius, VW and… Porsche-Boss Oliver Blume (55) as well BMW-Boss Oliver Zipse (60), who were now due the corresponding multi-year bonuses. Stifel analyst Daniel Schwarz noticed that the corporations do particularly well when it comes to the key figures on which the annual bonuses of their board members are based – at BMW on the number of electric cars, at Mercedes on cash flow and at Volkswagen according to the absolute amount of profit. “Managers do what they are paid to do,” concludes Schwarz.
But the “secret” leader of the ranking is the new one Adidas-Boss Bjørn Gulden (58). With remuneration of 9.18 million euros, he is only in fifth place. However, the Norwegian received after the move from the smaller sporting goods manufacturer puma As a kind of signing bonus, he also received almost 11,900 Adidas shares, for which his new employer had to spend 3.88 million euros including taxes. And the shares have risen sharply since they were purchased in June 2023. In his last year at Puma, the Norwegian earned 6.38 million euros.
This would also have placed him among the top 20 DAX CEOs last year. Exactly half of the 40 CEOs received compensation of six million euros or more – in 2022 there were only 14. 28 CEOs received the same amount or more in 2023 than a year earlier, only twelve had to make cuts. Made the biggest jump in salary Daimler-Truck boss Martin Daum, who more than doubled his remuneration to 6.92 million euros thanks to high annual bonuses and a long-term bonus tranche.
Severance payments often higher than CEO salaries
As the analysis also shows, changes at the top are the most expensive for companies. Thanks to severance payments – or the payment of salaries for the remaining contract term – the payments to ex-managers often exceed the salaries of their successors. For Herbert Diess (65), who resigned as VW boss in the summer of 2022, had a balance of 12.81 million euros in 2023 – almost a million euros more than in his last active year and a good three million euros more than for Blume. Also the new one Bavarian-CEO Bill Anderson (57), despite a signing bonus of 3.8 million euros, made less money than his predecessor Werner Baumann (61).
You don’t even have to have been CEO to receive high severance payments. Saori Dubourg (53), who lost in the fight to succeed BASF boss Martin Brudermüller (62), received 7.5 million euros in severance pay when she left the chemical giant and thus earned a good three million euros more than her ex-boss in 2023 . The eliminated one SAP-CFO Luka Mucic (52) even received 9.6 million euros in severance pay, while SAP boss Christian Klein (43) received compensation of 7.16 million euros. The largest sum in the remuneration reports is behind the name of Frank Appel (62). He is listed at Deutsche Post with 38.57 million euros after retiring in May. This is because Appel had his pension commitments paid out all at once.