Carrefour Group CEO Alexandre Bompard outside the company’s annual general meeting in Aubervilliers, north of Paris, on May 26, 2023 (AFP/Thomas SAMSON)
About 40% “no”: Carrefour shareholders endorsed the compensation of group CEO Alexandre Bompard for 2022 and 2023, but, like last year, with an unusually low score, at the group’s general meeting on Friday .
In total, 60.69% of shareholders approved Alexandre Bompard’s compensation in 2022, valued at more than 9 million euros by the CGT – a figure disputed by the group – and 56.75% for the 2023 compensation.
This is a fairly massive challenge, and rare within large groups, even if the remuneration has been approved.
Carrefour argues that the remuneration of its CEO includes elements of so-called “long-term” remuneration, conditional on the achievement of certain objectives.
In addition, the early renewal of the CEO’s term of office until 2026, announced at the end of March to “align” it with the distributor’s strategic plan, presented last November, was approved but nearly 20% of shareholders voted against.
– “Unacceptable” remuneration for the CGT –
Previously, the group’s unions, in particular the CFDT and the CGT, had criticized Mr. Bompard’s remuneration by comparing it with the social report of the leader, who arrived at the helm of Carrefour in 2017.
Alexandre Bompard’s compensation breaks down, according to Carrefour, into a fixed portion (1.5 million euros), a variable portion (up to twice the fixed portion) and long-term compensation (up to ” 60% of the maximum total remuneration”).
Remuneration “unacceptable, even indecent”, castigated the CGT, which had organized a rally in front of the doors of the general meeting, organized in the inner suburbs of Paris, to “denounce the carnivorous methods” of the group “vis-à-vis the workers”.
“It is difficult to explain this remuneration to employees, especially with regard to the social policy of the company, the reduction of the workforce or the passage of stores in lease-management”, estimates with AFP Sylvain Macé, CFDT delegate within the group.
The group’s unions denounce in this transition from stores to lease-management, a form of franchise system in which Carrefour remains the owner of the business, a low-noise social break. The CFDT estimates that Carrefour’s workforce has shrunk by 30,000 people since 2018, from 115,000 to 85,000.
Faced with his shareholders, Alexandre Bompard responded by assuring that when he arrived at the head of the group, “all the experts in the sector” said that the hypermarket format “was dead”. Since then, Carrefour “has not closed any hypermarkets while other players have done so”, he pleaded, saying that “each of the hypermarkets passed into lease-management has progressed since”.
Alexandre Bompard plans to increasingly rely on a franchise store operating model.
– Indirect emissions –
Carrefour was also summoned by small shareholders, claiming to weigh a total of 1.1% of the capital, to clarify the calculation of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard inaugurates a new hypermarket in Ra’anana, Israel, on May 9, 2023 (AFP/JACK GUEZ)
The board of directors of Carrefour, criticized in recent months by specialized associations on the sincerity of its commitments in this area, submitted to the vote of its shareholders a more precise communication of the levers used to reduce its indirect greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse, which was very largely endorsed, at 93%.
At the podium, the executive director of engagement, Carine Kraus, detailed the group’s four levers for action to reduce its indirect emissions by 29% by 2030 (which constitute almost all of the total emissions). The group intends in particular to rely on the efforts of its suppliers and to develop plant-based foods.
Finally, the management was challenged by a shareholder on the recent arrival of the distributor in Israel via a partnership with the Israeli group Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, likely in his eyes to make the company “accomplice” of a ” policy of illegal colonization of the Palestinian territories”.
Laurent Vallée, general secretary of the group, replied that “no Carrefour store will be present in the territories mentioned”, and that “there is no complicity, we are careful on this point to prevent any risk” in the matter.