Would Casino boss Jean-Charles Naouri want to protect his purchasing power against inflation? At the group’s general meeting to be held on May 10, the 73-year-old shareholder manager will ask shareholders to extend his mandate while doubling his fixed gross salary. “The fixed remuneration of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer is increased to 825,000 euros gross”we can read in the registration document submitted to the Autorité des marchés financiers on March 31.
With explanation: for a gross amount of 700,000 euros “on his appointment in 2005”, his fixed fee had been “reduced in 2013 to 480,000 euros gross according to the wishes of the chairman and managing director”, so that his emoluments can match his achievements. Nothing more than a simple catching up, according to the document, namely being “Initial flat fee indexed to inflation since 2013”.
“The Most Total Dismay”
But in the current context where household purchasing power is tense, it was enough to make the unions jump. “It is the most utter disorder, while the salary increases that have just been negotiated for all employees of the group range from 2.8% to a maximum of 3%, protests Ali Eloued, CGT manager of the Casino Group. How to involve and enthuse employees for these conditions? † The union brochures that he wants to distribute in the shops are already ready. With cartoon and illustrations of peanuts, the document ends with a request to reopen salary negotiations “to make up for the 3.6% price increase since early January 2022”.
Within the group we understand the discrepancy and the symbolism, but let’s make it clear that we have to compare what is similar. “In terms of market practices, the importance of the responsibilities and the role and skills of the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in a business sector undergoing profound change and in an increasingly complex environment with strong strategic challenges of transformation should be considered,” says a spokesperson. Moreover, “the level of fixed compensation was abnormally low compared to market practices for companies and for comparable levels of responsibility”.
The Casino boss’s total compensation is, of course, a far cry from that of his Carrefour counterpart, Alexandre Bompard
Supplemented with a variable part “subject to specific financial targets” after bringing him under €100,000 in 2021 given the poor results, the Casino boss’s total compensation is certainly far from that of his Carrefour counterpart. In 2020, Alexandre Bompard received 7.2 million euros, of which 1.5 million euros was fixed remuneration and 2.475 million euros variable remuneration. “the boss whose share in” [rémunération] variable was the highest of all SBF 120 leaders.
However, there is little tension about the adoption of these new provisions at the next general meeting: Mr Naouri is the majority shareholder of Casino through the holding company Rallye, which owns 51%.
