Two companies from the ranks of the largest German listed companies stand out with the remuneration of their managers this year by paying their top executives significantly higher salaries than the other 38 companies in the Dax: the industrial gases manufacturer Linde and the online mail order company Zalando.

Tillman Neuscheler

Editor in Business.

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According to calculations by the remuneration consultancy hkp, Linde paid its CEO Steve Angel total remuneration of around 57 million euros, including pension benefits, in his last year at the helm of the group.

Although the American received a regular fixed salary last year of only 1.3 million euros, as can be seen from the company's recently published remuneration report, there are also lavish variable remuneration components: Angel receives the majority of his remuneration in the form of a share-based long-term remuneration, on which according to hkp almost 44 million euros.

Top earners in the Dax

Angel had already earned a lot in previous years and was therefore the top earner in the Dax.

After merging with its American rival Praxair in 2018, Linde, now the world's largest supplier of industrial gases, had adapted to the usual salary practices in America.

A few years ago, Linde thus advanced to dimensions that were unusual for Germany.

According to hkp's calculations, Angel, who has been head of Praxair since 2006, received a salary package of around 53 million euros as Linde boss in 2020.

In the year of the merger in 2018, he received around $56 million.

The American handed over the Linde chief post to the Indian Sanjiv Lamba at the end of February and replaced Wolfgang Reitzle as chief supervisor on the company's board of directors.

Linde's share price has risen sharply over the past year, increasing by more than 40 percent.

With a market value of around 150 billion euros, Linde is now the most valuable of the 40 companies in the Dax.

Last autumn, the gases manufacturer replaced the long-time leader SAP, which is currently valued at just under 120 billion euros on the stock exchange.

The bosses of the Berlin online fashion mail order company Zalando were also generously remunerated last year: the CEOs Robert Gentz ​​and David Schneider each received 45.5 million euros last year (FAZ from April 8th).

Again, most of these amounts come from the appreciation in the value of stock options that had been granted to them a number of years ago.

A special case is the remuneration of Rubin Ritter, who was only a member of the Zalando management board in the first half of the year and then left.

According to the annual report, he still received around 42.5 million euros in the six months, plus a special bonus of around 46.5 million euros from a stock option program in 2013 after the end of his service contract.

Compensation reports increasingly complex

Despite these extremely lavish salaries at the top, the salaries of the Dax bosses did not increase overall in 2021.

In addition to the two outliers, Linde and Zalando, four other CEOs (Deutsche Post, Puma, Volkswagen and Adidas) received salaries that were slightly above the ten million euro mark, if you include the contributions to pension schemes.

All other Dax CEOs earned less than ten million euros.

According to hkp, the CEOs of the Dax companies received an average salary of 8.3 million euros in the past financial year.

However, a direct comparison with the previous year is not possible because the Dax was increased from 30 to 40 companies.

Comparing manager salaries is becoming increasingly difficult anyway, also because there are more and more different models and reporting practices.

Compensation reports are getting thicker and more extensive, but most of them are difficult to understand, even for experts.

"Individual transparency has increased, but comparability has suffered," says hkp compensation consultant Michael Kramarsch on Tuesday when the figures were presented to journalists in Frankfurt.

For the first time in years, the consulting company has therefore decided not to create a ranking of the top-earning Dax bosses.

There is no longer any comparability.

In order to increase the transparency of manager remuneration, the German Corporate Governance Code had until recently recommended that companies disclose the remuneration using sample tables in which a distinction was made between the remuneration granted and that accrued.

However, as part of the implementation of the EU Shareholder Rights Directive, these sample tables were removed from the Code.

Although the EU has announced new model tables, they are still a long time coming.