CEOs earn R68000 a day, says PwC report

CHIEF executives of companies listed on the local bourse take home an average of R68 219 a day, while corporates put a living wage at around R10 000 to R12 000 a month.

This was revealed in the “Executive directors: practices and remuneration trends” report produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released yesterday.

The study found that average pay for chief executives is R24.9 million, while a chief financial officer’s average pay is R15.1m and executive directors earn R8.7m on average.

PwC said the pay ratio for a company, which is the ratio between the total remuneration of the chief executive of a company and the average of the total remuneration of all other employees of the company, has increased from 61.8 percent in 2017 to 64.7 percent in 2018.

Gerald Seegers, the head of people and organisation for PwC Africa, said fair and responsible remuneration was a concept that must be implemented across an organisation, and pay conditions for junior employees must be given special focus.

“Recent corporate failures have highlighted the importance of good corporate governance while ensuring that remuneration packages are appropriately structured so as to not drive excessive risk-taking,” Seegers said.

Several companies have experienced shareholder discontent over their remuneration policies. The most recent being Barclays Africa, whose shareholders voted against its pay policy and implementation report last month.

Santam also faced difficult questions from shareholders about a R19m cash bonus paid to Santam chief executive Lizé Lambrechts last year. The group paid the bonus under its Outperformance Plan.

The incoming joint chief executive of Investec, Hendrik du Toit, was awarded a bonus of £5.6m (R99.85m) for the year ended March in his current role as head of the group’s asset management unit, Investec Asset Management.

Investec’s remuneration committee also approved an annual bonus of £2m each for group chief executive Stephen Koseff and managing director Bernard Kantor. A £1.7m bonus was also given the green light for group risk and finance director Glynn Burger.

The PwC study found that at their cut-off date of April 30 there were 359 active JSElisted companies with a combined market capitalisation of R14.5 trillion, up from R14trln last year.