The best-paid Dax bosses earned over 45 million euros in the previous year
The heads of the 30 DAX companies earned more on average last year than in 2019. But the pay gap is large. Two Dax bosses each earned over 45 million euros.
Steve Angel (Linde) and Niklas Östberg (Delivery Hero) are by far the two best-paid bosses of a Dax group – at least if you look at the remuneration of the board of directors. Accordingly, the US manager Angel at the top of the industrial group earned the equivalent of a good 47 million euros in 2020 (inflows). For comparison: The SAP boss Christian Klein pocketed “only” 2.2 million euros. And this despite the fact that SAP posted a net profit around three times as high as Linde.
Contents
Delivery Hero boss earns 45.7 million
It is even more interesting if you look at the earnings of Delivery Hero boss Niklas Östberg. Its delivery service was able to double its sales in the previous year, which was shaped by the corona crisis, but continued to make losses. Meanwhile, Östberg posted an income of 45.7 million euros for 2020. However, this is mainly due to the fact that the Delivery Hero CEO silvered over half a million stock options. In 2019, Östberg earned just 350,000 euros.
Overall, the income of the Dax CEO rose from 194 to almost 242 million euros, as an evaluation of the compensation reports by the dpa news agency revealed. However, this is due to the two outliers Angel and Östberg, like n-tv writes. Because 15 Dax bosses posted more or less high losses for 2020. Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted, for example, had to deal with 3.5 million euros less income. Munich Re boss Joachim Wenning earned 2.3 million euros less than in 2019.
Plus for donations for all Dax bosses
However, all Dax CEOs increased their grants, which are long-term bonuses that will be paid out over the coming years. SAP boss Klein, for example, can look forward to a total of 9.2 million euros. In total, the CEOs of the DAX companies receive grants amounting to 182 million euros. That is around 15 million euros more than the year before. This does not include the benefits for top earners Angel, as Linde’s consolidated balance sheet is drawn up under Irish law. Siemens Energy is also excluded from the donations, according to the dpa, because the company has not yet submitted an annual report for 2020 after the spin-off from the parent company Siemens.
The general manager of the shareholders’ association DSW Marc Tüngler criticized the composition of the remuneration of top managers from up to five components: fixed salary, short-term bonus, long-term bonus, old-age provision and fringe benefits. There is hardly anything more intransparent than the remuneration of the executive board, said Tüngler. Another problem is that although the idea applies to pay well for good performance, the remuneration is stretched over three to four years.
