Top ASX 200 CEOs earn more in a year than you will in your life
AUSTRALIA’S top chief executives might have taken a pay cut in 2015 but they still earned more in one year than most of us could expect in a lifetime.
AUSTRALIA’S top chief executives might have taken a pay cut in 2015 but they still earned more in one year than most workers could expect in a lifetime.
The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) CEO Pay in ASX 200 Companies report revealed the average base pay for ASX 100 chief executives fell 3.3 per cent from 2014 to $1.86 million a year.
Including bonuses and shares, the average realised pay was $5.54 million — 68 times the average fulltime adult worker’s $81,900 salary as recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Even Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s salary paled in comparison, at $517,500.
The highest paid ASX 200 chief executives were Peter and Steven Lowy of Westfield Corp on a combined $24.75 million — followed by Andrew Bassat of Seek Limited on $19.39 million and Peter Allen of Scentre Group, owner and operator of Westfield in Australia and New Zealand, on $17.86 million.
ACSI chief executive Louise Davidson said companies needed to think long and hard about the community’s response to how they paid their chief executives and senior staff.
“Ultimately companies will lose the respect and their social license to operate if they don’t take into account the sentiment that consumers and society at large have about their pay sizes,” she said.
“It’s positive that is has not been going up.”
Ms Davidson said the main reason for the slight decrease in chief executive pay packets was Australian legislation allowing shareholders to vote on the matter at general meetings.
“That came in about three years ago so we think that is driving this reduction to a large degree,” she said.
“Similar places like the US and UK are not seeing the same slight reduction in CEO pay, they are seeing CEO pay continue to rise.”
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