Twelve million euros: this is the record amount of the bonus that Ilham Kadri, the current CEO of Solvay, the Belgian chemicals multinational, which employs nearly 22,000 people around the world, should benefit from. The fifty-year-old, who has led the group founded in the 19th century since 2019e century by Ernest Solvay, will thus become the Belgian record holder for cash bonuses granted to a boss.
The reasons for this performance, which shareholders will undoubtedly not oppose at their next meeting on December 8? Having succeeded without any pitfalls in the split of the company into two units: Solvay, which will extend the company’s activity in so-called “essential” chemicals (for construction, automobiles, air, water, etc. .), and Syensqo – which Ms Kadri will chair – for “specialty” chemistry, including the development of batteries and hydrogen-based technologies.
The bonus granted to the manager, in addition to her annual remuneration of 4.8 million (including a variable portion of 3.5 million), would be justified, according to the company’s board of directors, by the “exceptional performance” of Ms. Kadri and her presence “essential” in order to successfully split the group, which is celebrating its 160th anniversary. An official press release also mentioned that the CEO had “other options”. Namely, most likely, tempting offers sent to him by headhunters.
A sum “of a symbolically deplorable nature”
Even if the 12 million promised to him are a drop in the ocean of Solvay’s profits (1.9 billion euros in 2022), they are obviously making people talk. Including an economic press that is often uncritical of emoluments of this type.
“It is not so much the amount envisaged which raises eyebrows, but the fact that it is in no way linked to the success of the split which has been initiated”, wrote the daily on November 8 Dutch-speaking De Tijd. A chronicler of The Echo and RTBF better summarized the general opinion, by speaking of a sum “stupid and symbolically deplorable”. Also unjustifiable, both in terms of form and in terms of its volume, this bonus symbolizing, according to this specialist, the existence of another world, inaccessible to ordinary employees.
For the company, in any case, the CEO’s remuneration and bonus are simply aligned with those of other European players in the sector. An expert recalls the precedent of Carlos Brito, CEO of AB Inbev, the Belgian world number one in beer: called to halve the group’s debt and to succeed in the takeover of the American Anheuser-Busch he would have benefited, a total of 100 million euros. But not in cash, rather in the form of options on stocks which have proven to be particularly profitable.