Stellantis: shareholders validate the remuneration of Carlos Tavares with 70% of the votes

The shareholders of the car manufacturer Stellantis validated this Tuesday with 70.2% of the votes the remuneration of the group’s general director, Carlos Tavares, which could reach 36.5 million euros for the year 2023 – a purely consultative vote.

This remuneration includes a bonus of 10 million euros linked to the transformation of the group created in 2021 of the merger of PSA and Fiat-Chrysler as well as bonuses awarded only if certain objectives are met by 2025, the last year of his current mandate. Initially, Carlos Tavares will receive 23.5 million euros for the year 2023.

Controversial remuneration

The boss’s remuneration, up 56% compared to 2022, has sparked controversy in France, where the salaries of big bosses remain generally far from these peaks.

Carlos Tavares was attracted from 2022 the wrath of French President Emmanuel Macronwho found it “shocking and excessive” the “astronomical” amount of his remuneration. The latter had been validated by 80% of shareholders.

Stellantis believes, for his part, that this remuneration should rather be compared with that of multinationals like Boeing in the United States (Dave Calhoun, $33 million for 2023). The group makes the majority of its sales in Europe, but draws most of its profits from the American market.

“90% of my salary is made by the company’s results”

Traveling Monday to the Trémery factory (Moselle), Carlos Tavares had assumed this remuneration, which, he said, has “a contractual dimension between the company and me as for a football player and a pilot of Formula 1 “.

“90% of my salary is made by the company’s results, (…) so this proves that the company’s results are apparently not too bad,” he added, speaking to France Bleu Lorraine North. “If you think this is not acceptable, make a law and change the law and I will respect it.”

The president of the socialist group in the National Assembly Boris Vallaud took him at his word by announcing that he was re-submitting a bill dating from 2020 aimed at limiting pay gaps within companies.

“Totally shocking and scandalous”

Several investor advisory firms had recommended voting against this remuneration this year, including the American agency Glass Lewis which expressed “serious reservations”. Same position at the Proxinvest agency. Among CAC 40 executives, “the median is five million” euros in compensation, and in the United States this reaches 15 million, noted its general director Charles Pinel on BFM Business on Monday.

The CGT Stellantis decried a “totally shocking and scandalous” salary, equivalent to 100,000 euros per day, “an increase of almost 50%, when most of us got only 3.7%, and are struggling to finish the month “.

The automobile giant indicated on February 15 that it would redistribute nearly 1.9 billion euros to its employees around the world. Shareholders will receive around 7.7 billion euros for the 2023 financial year.

Record profit in 2023

The largest shareholder of Stellantis is the Exor holding company of the Agnelli family (14.2%), followed by that of the Peugeot family (7%) and the French State via Bpifrance (6%). The general director of the public investment bank, Nicolas Dufourcq, indicated at the end of March that he would “abstain on these questions of remuneration”, while “we have reached levels which are effectively American, for a group that is quintessentially American, but may indeed not be entirely understood in Europe.”

With its 14 brands including Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Dodge and Opel, Stellantis has published a new record profit of 18.6 billion euros for 2023, up 11% year-on-year. Its turnover is close to 190 billion euros.

The automobile giant has posted record results since the merger thanks to drastic cost control driven by the Portuguese boss and high prices which make it possible to achieve comfortable margins.