Qantas boss Alan Joyce leads list of Australia’s top-earning CEOs
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce takes home close to $24,000,000 a year, leading the field of Australia’s highest paid CEOs. See the list of best paid executives.
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Qantas boss Alan Joyce has topped a list of the nation’s highest paid executives, as it’s revealed all but one CEO received bonuses in the past year.
The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) today published the results of its annual survey of CEO pay for the 2018 financial year, which showed Mr Joyce led the field with realised pay (which includes cash and shares that vested during the year) of $23.87 million.
Nicholas Moore, former chief executive of Macquarie Group, was the next highest paid ASX100 boss ($23.85 million), followed by Treasury Wine Estates chief Michael Clarke ($19.02 million).
The report, prepared by Australian governance advisory firm Ownership Matters, found that all but one of the 76 CEOs in the ASX 100 who were eligible for a bonus received one.
Domino’s Pizza chief executive Don Meij — last year’s highest paid CEO — was the only CEO to miss out.
The median bonus awarded to an ASX100 CEO was $1.61m, the second highest in 18 years.
The median ASX100 CEO received 70 per cent of their maximum annual bonus — a figure almost unchanged in four years.
Only seven per cent of ASX100 CEOs received less than 30 per cent of maximum.
However the report found the base pay for ASX100 CEOs fell by 1.3 per cent to $1.88 million, and had fallen 0.3 per cent a year since 2008.
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ACSI CEO Louise Davidson said Royal Commission proceedings and declining public trust failed to dampen executive bonuses last year.
“The way bonuses are being handed out suggests there is a culture of entitlement whereby supposedly ‘at risk’ pay is not very risky at all.
“These payments occurred in a year when the Royal Commission was in full swing, revealing evidence that executives were not being held accountable for poor conduct, and in the wake of soaring ‘first strike’ votes against remuneration reports.
“Clearly, corporate Australia is not getting the message that bonus payments should be variable and awarded for stretch performance, rather than being fixed pay under another name. This is a failure of both discipline and leadership.”
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus took to twitter to criticise those on the list.
“Does anyone honestly think one person deserves $24mil/year when staff earn a fraction of this”.
Ten highest paid ASX200 CEOs in FY18
1. Alan Joyce, Qantas Airways, $23,876,351
2. Nicholas Moore, Macquarie Group, $23,855,580
3. Michael Clarke, Treasury Wine Estates, $19,024,334
4. Bob Vassie, St Barbara, $13,246,088
5. Craig Scroggie, Next DC, $12,515,914
6. Sandeep Biswas, Newcrest Mining, $12,083,392
7. Brian Benari, Challenger Group, $11,696,001
8. Raleigh Finlayson, Saracen Mineral Holdings, $11,284,256
9. Andrew Bassat, Seek, $10,744,472
10. Colin Goldschmidt, Sonic Healthcare, $10,017,376
Originally published as Qantas boss Alan Joyce leads list of Australia’s top-earning CEOs