CBA CEO Matt Comyn’s $500,000 pay rise depite profit plunge
CEO Matt Comyn pocketed almost $4 million in the 2020 financial year – even though the bank’s profit dropped by 11.3 per cent.
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Commonwealth Bank of Australia executives enjoyed generous pay rises in the last financial year – despite the fact the bank’s cash profits have plunged.
According to ASX documents seen by news.com.au, chief executive Matt Comyn was paid a total of $3,896,243 in the 2020 fiscal year.
Of that staggering sum, $3,410,000 was take-home pay while $486,243 was deferred equity awards, although he forfeited more than $1.3 million in earlier deferred payments for falling short of certain “performance, risk and reputation” conditions.
It was an increase of almost half a million dollars – $484,685 to be precise – compared to the previous financial year, when Mr Comyn took home $3,411,558.
Chief information officer Pascal Boillat also scored $3,268,308 – up more than $700,000 compared with last year.
Chief risk officer Nigel Williams pocketed $3,064,743 while deputy chief executive David Cohen earned $2,225,026 and head of retail banking Angus Sullivan made $1,982,535.
The only bigwig to miss out on a pay rise was Vittoria Shortt, the head of New Zealand subsidiary bank ASB, who made $1,952,071, which actually represented a pay cut.
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However, the hefty pay rises have nothing on former CEO Ian Narev, who made $5.5 million before resigning over the AUSTRAC money-laundering debacle.
It comes as the major bank revealed yesterday the fallout of the coronavirus crisis caused cash profits to slide by 11.3 per cent due to deferred loan repayments of more than a billion dollars.
It posted a profit of $7.3 billion.
The country’s largest retail bank posted a statutory net profit of $9.6 billion for the 12 months ending June 30, a 12.4 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2019.
But Mr Comyn said the bank had fared reasonably well in the face of the unprecedented health and economic crisis.
“Overall, we’re lucky that we came into this period in a very strong position so the bank’s been able to operate very effectively during that time, but of course we have been impacted,” Mr Comyn said.
“For the Commonwealth Bank, we feel very well positioned for a range of different economic scenarios.”
The news comes hot on the heels of the news that Australia’s highest-paid CEO last financial year took home more than 420 times the national average salary.
Andrew Barkla from IDP Education topped the 19th annual list from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), with a stunning $37.76 million salary – the equivalent of $103,452 a day.
His international education organisation offers student placement in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, UK, Ireland and Canada, and has a share price of $13.17.
Mr Barkla’s $37.76 million pay – which was “largely the result of the exercise of options granted prior to the company’s 2015 IPO” – smashed the previous record set by Domino’s Pizza CEO Don Meij.
Mr Meij took home $36.84 million in the 2017 financial year, causing a national backlash at the time and even prompting former PM Malcolm Turnbull to criticise the payout.
Originally published as CBA CEO Matt Comyn’s $500,000 pay rise depite profit plunge