2021 was a record year not only for the Stellantis car company, but also for its CEO Carlos Tavares.

According to estimates by the Paris investment consultancy Phitrust, he earned 66 million euros last year.

That would be much more than other corporate leaders receive.

VW CEO Herbert Diess, for example, came up with around 10 million euros.

Even in the US, where traditionally more is paid, Ford CEO Jim Farley “only” paid 21 million euros.

Niklas Zaboji

Economic correspondent in Paris

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Phitrust's calculations provoke outrage.

On the one hand in the investment advice itself. Her deputy general director criticized Tavares' remuneration to the French business magazine "Challenges" as "inappropriate".

You cannot pay the CEO 66 million euros and at the same time restructure and cut staff in the French-Italian-American group with its 16 brands such as Peugeot, Fiat and Opel, which was created at the beginning of 2021.

Employee representatives also excited the 66 million euros.

The French trade union CFDT said that this could not be conveyed to the employees.

Especially since wage increases for the rest of the workforce had failed due to resistance from management.

"The level of compensation for our CEO is indecent," said CFDT spokeswoman Christine Virassamy.

Politicians should cap executive salaries, otherwise it shouldn't come as a surprise that extreme positions are popular in elections.

Even the French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen spoke up on the matter and called the 66 million euros at a campaign appearance "shocking", albeit "less shocking than others" because the remuneration was "exceptionally" linked to "good results". .

The bill doesn't add up

But the 66 million euros that are in the room seem in need of explanation in view of the Stellantis annual report.

It only mentions around 19.2 million euros for Tavares, i.e. less than a third of the amount in the room.

This is divided into a fixed salary of EUR 2 million, short-term performance-related remuneration of EUR 7.5 million, long-term performance-related remuneration of EUR 5.6 million, pension entitlements of EUR 2.4 million and a special payment of EUR 1.7 million as part of the merger.

To get to €66m, you have to take into account the claims Tavares has beyond the bonuses mentioned.

As if there were a performance-related cash package and a performance-related share package.

Their value is 25 and 32 million euros.

But even at this point, Phitrust's calculations don't add up, the company says to the FAZ, because then you would come up with 76 million euros.

Employees will receive 1.9 billion euros in bonuses

One problem: The investor advisory service counted Tavares' long-term performance-related remuneration, pension entitlements and special payment twice - because only after deducting this total of 9.7 million euros does one come to 66 million euros.

Above all, however, the payment of the packages does not depend solely on the business result for 2021, but on the five-year development of the company - in one case beginning in 2021, in the other beginning in 2022. Tavares can therefore only have a maximum of one fifth of the cash on his salary slip for the previous year book packages.

For 2022, if the company develops well, a fifth of the block of shares would be added.

Stellantis cannot understand the criticism of Tavares' salary because of these methodological errors, but also with regard to the fact that money only flows if it is successful and according to transparent rules.

A company spokeswoman emphasizes that from last year's net profit of 13.4 billion euros, 1.9 billion alone will be paid out as bonuses to employees.