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The unusually generous compensation packages for US CEOs are increasingly being viewed critically (Handelsblatt). – Based on a new Equilar study, the German business newspaper Handelsblatt reports that CEO compensation in the US has reached a record high, even at companies that are running losses: the CEOs of the 100 US companies with the highest sales received an average of $23.7 million in 2023 (fixed salary, bonuses, options and shares). The prime example is Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun. Boeing shareholders just awarded him a compensation package totaling $33 million - 45 percent more than last year and at the same time the most generous compensation package the company has ever paid to a CEO. The Handelsblatt notes that Boeing lost more than $2 billion last year, and Calhoun is stepping down at the end of the year in view of the massive quality problems. This is causing discontent among shareholders and the population as a whole. At Boeing, 36 percent of shareholders voted against Calhoun’s generous compensation package. And at 3M's annual meeting, 54 percent of shareholders opposed an increase in CEO Mike Roman's pay. Finally, the Handelsblatt refers to a survey by "Data for Progress" - 80 percent of respondents would support a law that increases taxes on companies if their CEOs earn more than 50 times as much as the average employee. The Handelsblatt report can be found at https://lnkd.in/enThxJYi Tilman Bender, Managing Director of the Executive Search Firm TH Bender & Partners, notes that "New-to-the-American market, foreign owned companies are often surprised at how much higher the compensation levels of top managers are compared to their overseas colleagues. This often leads to a considerable need for explanation, especially because the responsibilities of employees in the parent company are often much greater than those of their American colleagues. Company management often sees no alternative and accepts the higher fixed salary that the labor market in the USA (and increasingly also in Canada) demands. But there are creative solutions when it comes to structuring variable compensation. This variable compensation should consider the employee's achieved success criteria in the medium and long term. Creativity and individual solutions often result in reduced fixed compensation while enabling the subsidiary to recruit top talent.”

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