[imagesource: Mr Price Group]

Congrats if you’re one of those employees who gets a little bonus come the end of the year.

Hey, it’s not much but it helps see you through the silly season without having to resort to two-minute noodles before payday at the end of January.

For the big dogs, bonuses are a very different story. 2020 saw the CEO of gaming company Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, earning just a tick under $155 million (roughly R2,6 billion at today’s exchange rate).

Closer to home, Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman netted himself a cool R300,3 million in 2021.

Compared to those figures, Mr Price Group CEO Mark Blair is still in the minor leagues but nobody should be complaining about scoring a R32,931 million bonus for the year ending April 2, 2022.

His bonus comes in the form of an allocation in its group forfeitable share plan, reports Moneyweb:

This took his total remuneration for the 2022 financial year to R56.5 million, an increase of 201% on the R18.8 million package in 2021.

The bonus equates to his total packages for 2021 and 2020, combined.

Image: Mr Price Group

The group’s remuneration and nominations committee defends the so-called “Special share award to the CEO”, saying that the “CEO’s total reward (fixed and variable elements) was benchmarked in August 2020 against a comparator group of JSE-listed companies of similar size and industry”.

The committee said Blair (above) has an excellent track record during his three years in the role and has been “paid in line with the market/comparator group on a total reward basis”.

There is one catch – the shares that form part of that bonus are subject to a five-year holding plan. If Blair’s employment is terminated prior to that, the shares are “forfeitable in increments”.

Before we carry on, here’s a point worth considering from the Moneyweb comments section:

I can see the logic in that. I also see that we live in the most unequal society in the world and forking out more than R50 million a year to one person won’t sit well with many for good reason.

The CEO’s actual salary is listed as “a rather modest R5,957 million” before you add all the tasty extras:

His total guaranteed package, including a R500 000 December bonus, is R8.4 million.

He received a further R11.6 million in short-term incentives in 2022, with total long-term incentives (including the “special share award”) of R36.47 million.

Mr Price CFO Mark Stirton took home R12,593 million in 2022.

Steve Ellis, who served as group executive director until he retired on December 31, 2021, received R4,5 million for nine months of graft.

We are all in the wrong line of work.

[source:moneyweb]