After three years of decline in a row, executive salaries in the DAX companies rose again for the first time last year – and significantly so.

On average, the board members of the companies listed in the Dax earned around 24 percent more in 2021 than in the previous year.

This is the result of a comparative study by the Technical University of Munich and the German Association for the Protection of Securities (DSW).

On average, the Dax board members earned around 3.9 million euros last year.

Managerial salaries have risen primarily because companies' profits have risen again significantly in the past year - after the first Corona slump a year earlier.

2021 was indeed a record year for many companies.

Tillman Neuscheler

Editor in Business.

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The spread of salaries within companies has also increased again in the past year – i.e. the difference between the payment of the top managers on the board and the average employee of the company.

According to the study, board members earned on average 53 times that of their employees, compared to just 47 times the previous year.

There are of course significant differences between the companies, which depend heavily on whether the majority of the normal employees are well-paid IT specialists, such as at SAP, or rather simple employees, such as at Delivery Hero (factor 84) or Deutsche Post ( factor 76).

According to the remuneration study, however, the salary differences between the executive board and regular employees are greatest at Adidas (where executive board members receive 114 times the employee).

At the top of the list of top earners are the managers of the industrial gases manufacturer Linde, which, after merging with its American rival Praxair in 2018, adapted to the extremely lavish American salary habits.

On average, the Linde board members received around 8.8 million euros.

According to the DSW study, the previous Linde boss Steve Angel, who has now moved to the top of the board of directors, was granted a salary of 19 million euros last year.

Only salary components that were allocated to him for the past year are included here.

In fact, significantly more money accrued to him last year because share-based long-term remuneration – which ran over several years – was also paid out.

Stock options often crucial

In addition to Steve Angel, former Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess earned well with 12 million euros and SAP CEO Christian Klein with 9 million euros.

At the bottom of the DSW salary list presented now are the CEOs of the online fashion retailer Zalando.

They only receive a fixed salary from the company with fringe benefits of EUR 78,000 per year.

However, they did not have to starve either: In addition to their normal remuneration, the Berlin pioneers of online trading also received very lavish benefits (the two founders and co-CEOs Robert Gentz ​​and David Schneider received more than 40 million euros each), but not directly from the company's coffers, but via stock options that were allocated to the founders in 2013, i.e. before the IPO in October 2014 (FAZ of April 8, 2022).

Such long-term remuneration components make it increasingly difficult to compare manager salaries.

Depending on the methodology, the determined salaries for top managers fluctuate extremely.

In addition, since last year, companies no longer have to present the remuneration of their top staff in the form of the so-called model tables in accordance with the German Corporate Governance Code.

"We are faced with an almost impenetrable jungle of data that a reasonable average shareholder can no longer see through," complained DSW Managing Director Marc Tüngler on Wednesday when the study was presented.

Many terms are now interpreted very differently by companies.

Compensation reports from companies are becoming thicker and thicker, but unfortunately not more transparent.