Three managers of the DAX companies each earned over ten million euros last year. The bosses of the three major car manufacturers are also among the top earners. But the secret leader is someone else.
With compensation of 12.74 million euros, Mercedes boss Ola Källenius has become the top earner among the managers of the largest listed companies in Germany. The Swedish native overtook Deutsche Börse boss Theodor Weimer in terms of salaries for DAX companies in 2023, as an analysis by the Reuters news agency based on remuneration reports shows.
Trio over the ten million mark
With 10.60 million euros, Weimer slipped into second place among the best-paid managers, just ahead of Belen Garijo from Merck (10.53 million euros). According to the evaluation, the three entrepreneurs are the only drivers in the DAX family to exceed the ten million 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 also refer to the “remuneration granted and owed” including the pension contributions that the companies pay for their bosses.
This also ensures that the largest sum in the compensation reports is behind Frank Appel’s name, even if he has no longer received a salary since he retired in May 2023. Nevertheless, it is listed at Deutsche Post with 38.57 million euros. This is because Appel had his pension commitments paid out all at once.
“Managers do what they are paid to do”
The current six top earners also include all three CEOs from the automotive industry, who earned handsomely in the Corona years. The fact that they hardly had to give discounts due to the shortage of parts is now reflected in the salaries of Källenius, VW and Porsche boss Oliver Blume and BMW boss Oliver Zipse, for whom the corresponding multi-year bonuses were now due.
Stifel analyst Daniel Schwarz emphasized that the companies 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 on the absolute amount of profit . “Managers do what they are paid to do,” concludes Schwarz.
Adidas boss “secretly” in first place thanks to the share package
The “secret” leader of the ranking is the new Adidas boss Björn Gulden. With remuneration of 9.18 million euros, he is only in fifth place. After moving from the smaller sporting goods manufacturer Puma, the Norwegian also received almost 11,900 Adidas shares as a kind of signing bonus, for which his new employer had to spend 3.88 million euros including taxes.
Since the purchase in June 2023, the shares have even risen sharply. Back then they were worth around 160 euros each, but today they are worth around 200 euros – an increase of 25 percent. 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 people. In 2023, 28 CEOs received the same amount or more than a year earlier, and only twelve had to make cuts. The biggest jump in salary was made by 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 are often more than 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 example, Herbert Diess, who resigned as VW boss in the summer of 2022, still had 12.81 million euros to his name in 2023 – almost a million more than in his last active year and a good three million more than for Blume. Bayer’s new CEO Bill Anderson also made less money than his predecessor Werner Baumann, despite a signing bonus of 3.8 million euros.
You don’t even have to have been CEO to receive such high severance payments. Saori Dubourg, who lost in the fight to succeed BASF boss Martin Brudermüller, 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 resigned SAP CFO Luka Mucic even received 9.6 million euros in severance pay, while SAP boss Christian Klein “only” received compensation of 7.16 million euros.
Jan Plate, HR, tagesschau, April 11, 2024 1:22 p.m