The CEO of a large Belgian listed company earned an average of 3.02 million euros in 2021. That is 14.4 percent more than in 2020, De Tijd writes today. It is the first time since the newspaper started its annual survey into top remuneration in 2006 that the average remuneration of the CEOs of the Bel20 companies is more than 3 million euros, it sounds like.
The 14 percent increase comes after some moderation in the corona year 2020. Michel Doukeris, who succeeded Carlos Brito as CEO of AB InBev on 1 July 2021, immediately raised 8.37 million euros in his first year as CEO. That is an increase of more than 550 percent compared to the 1.28 million euros that Brito found in his pay bag in the corona year 2020.
The significantly higher remuneration for the AB InBev top performer largely explains the increase last year in the average remuneration of Bel20 managers. Excluding the beer giant, the average compensation amounted to 2.74 million euros, 3.7 percent more than in 2020.
Despite fluctuations from year to year, the average salary package of the top managers has remained more or less the same for a long time. There will be an acceleration from 2018 onwards. This is partly explained by the fact that the biopharmaceutical company Argenx, which pays its CEO very generously, was included in the Bel20 in June 2018.
A second explanation is the increasing importance of the variable part in the total salary package, and the rise of share-related compensation. A third explanation is that management fees in Belgium seem to be moving towards the higher levels of our neighboring countries.
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