The supervisory boards of German companies earned an average of 17.4 percent more last year than in 2021. The controllers of the 40 DAX companies were paid the best.
The supervisory board of listed companies is the control body that has to monitor the management – this is what the German Stock Corporation Act says. However, the members of this legally required body usually do not do this for free. You get paid for it. The German Protection Association for Securities Ownership, or DSW for short, calculated and listed how high the remuneration was last year.
According to an analysis by DSW, the salaries of DAX supervisory boards rose by 17.4 percent in 2022 – to a total of around 117 million euros. According to the protection association, each full member of the supervisory board received an average remuneration of 117,000 euros. The respective supervisory board chairmen received more than three times as much: they earned an average of around 393,000 euros.
BMW pays the highest
The top earner among Germany’s chief inspectors last year was Norbert Reithofer from BMW with 610,000 euros. In doing so, he replaced Paul Achleitner, formerly Deutsche Bank’s chief controller, as the highest-paid chairman of the supervisory board of the DAX companies.
Following in the ranking are the chief controller of Siemens, Jim Hagemann Snabe, with an annual salary of 602,000 euros, and Kurt Bock of BASF with a salary of 550,000 euros for his supervisory board position.
No woman among the top earners
The remuneration of the supervisory board is decided at least every four years at the general meeting, i.e. by the shareholders, and is recorded in the company’s articles of association.
There is not a single woman among the top ten highest paid supervisory board chairmen in Germany. Since 2016, there has been a statutory quota of 30 percent for women on the supervisory board of listed companies. With the so-called Leadership Positions Act, the federal government wants to increase the proportion of women in the management bodies of business and administration.
Bianca von der Au, HR, tagesschau, November 23rd, 2023 1:19 p.m