Boardroom Tails
ANN CROTTY: What makes CEOs expensive?
In the fluid world of executive remuneration, some things appear to be certain. First, that whatever happens to earnings, share prices or the economy, pay will trend upwards. Second, that after a period of public indignation, executives will be left alone to ponder their growing wealth. The latest indignation fest has been prompted by news of the R100m in salary and shares paid to Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson. The problem is that executive remuneration isn’t a science. If it were, Basson would probably not get R100m — but he would still almost certainly get an awful lot more than mostother CEOs.Of course, the notion of "peers" is tricky because, despite all the talk, there’s not really an effective market for CEOs. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that Basson has few peers — only the likes of Bidvest’s Brian Joffe, Discovery’s Adrian Gore, Aspen’s Stephen Saad or Capitec’s Michiel le Roux would truly qualify. In practice, this means that if Shoprite chairman Christo Wiese were thinking ...
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