The boss of Casino, Jean-Charles Naouri would he seek to protect his purchasing power from inflation? At the general meeting of the group, which will be held on May 10, the 73-year-old shareholder manager will ask shareholders for a renewal of his mandate at the same time as a doubling of his gross fixed salary. “The fixed compensation of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer is increased to 825,000 euros gross”can we read in the registration document filed on March 31 with the AMF.
Accompanied by an explanation: for a gross amount of 700,000 euros “upon his appointment in 2005”, his fixed compensation had been “reduced in 2013 to 480,000 euros gross according to the wishes of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer”, so that his emoluments can correspond to his performance. Nothing more than a simple catch-up, according to the document, namely its “initial fixed compensation indexed to inflation since 2013”.
“The most total dismay”
But in the current context tense on the purchasing power of households, it was enough to make the unions jump. “It is the most total disarray, while the salary increases which have just been negotiated for all the group’s staff vary from 2.8% to 3% maximum, protests Ali Eloued, CGT manager of the Casino Group. How to involve employees and make them want to get involved in these conditions? » The union leaflets he has planned to distribute in the shops are already ready. With cartoon and illustrations of peanuts, the document ends with a request to reopen salary negotiations “in order to catch up with the price increase of 3.6% since the beginning of January 2022”.
Within the group, we understand the discrepancy and the symbolism, but we suggest that we must compare what is comparable. “With regard to market practices, the importance of the responsibilities and role as well as the skills of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer must be taken into account in a rapidly changing business sector and in an increasingly complex environment with strong strategic challenges of transformation”, says a spokesperson. Besides, “the level of fixed compensation was abnormally low compared to market practices for companies and for comparable levels of responsibility”.
The total compensation of the Casino boss is, of course, very far from that of his Carrefour counterpart, Alexandre Bompard
Supplemented by a variable part “subject to specific financial objectives” having brought him less than 100,000 euros in 2021 given the poor results, the total remuneration of the boss of Casino is certainly very far from that of his counterpart at Carrefour. In 2020, Alexandre Bompard received 7.2 million euros in 2020, including 1.5 million euros fixed and 2.475 million euros variable, making him, according to the latest annual report on executive compensation of Proxinvest, the investor advisory company “the boss whose share of variable was the highest among all the leaders of the SBF 120”.
However, there is little suspense as to the approval of these new provisions at the next general meeting: Mr. Naouri being the majority shareholder of Casino through the holding company Rallye, which holds 51%.