SELLANTIS: THE 2021 TAVARES COMPENSATION IS POLITICAL
PARIS (Reuters) – The amount of compensation for Carlos Tavares, executive director of Stellantis, for 2021 sparked controversy in the French political class and some unions on Wednesday, as the car group’s general meeting of shareholders born of the merger between PSA and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) must decide this in the afternoon.
Hailed for turning PSA over and subsequently successfully merging with FCA, Carlos Tavares should receive compensation for the past financial year of around €19 million, including €2 million in fixed salary and €1.7 million in exceptional bonuses. mainly from performance-related variable remuneration.
For its part, the management company Phitrust, a minority shareholder of the manufacturer, estimates the total envelope of the remuneration of Carlos Tavares at 66 million euros, notably calling for an allocation of free shares for an amount estimated at 32 million euros. long-term compensation in an amount estimated at EUR 25 million.
A Stellantis spokesperson denied this EUR 66 million advanced by Phitrust, calling it “false”.
“The real compensation for 2021 is around 19 million euros. The rest are hypothetical elements in the long term, until 2028,” said the spokesman.
A few hours after the general meeting, and in the political context of the interim rounds of the presidential elections in France, the topic caused a reaction.
“It is an indecent and abhorrent compensation,” said RMC Jean-Pierre Mercier, trade union representative CGT, third trade union of PSA, acknowledging that despite the difficulties that enamelled the year 2021, characterized in particular by a shortage of semiconductors and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the group had posted strong results.
“It is urgent that our politicians finally take real action against the salary ceiling of our leaders,” Christine Virassamy, representative of the CFDT, PSA’s fifth union, said in a leaflet. “These situations contribute to, and unfortunately lead to, extreme stances by citizens during elections.”
FOR THE GOVERNMENT IT IS FOR SHAREHOLDERS TO DECIDE
The subject has indeed taken a political turn. Asked on the sidelines of a trip to the outskirts of Paris, Marine Le Pen described the amount of this fee as “shocking”.
“It is shocking, but less shocking than for others,” however, the National Rally candidate added to journalists, stressing that this fee was associated “for once” with “good results”.
In the camp of outgoing President Emmanuel Macron, his opponent on April 24, government spokesman Gabriel Attal remarked on BFMTV and RMC that “it is a private company and in the end it is the shareholders who decide and vote”, but emphasized that this is the showed the need for better European coordination to regulate the issue of value sharing in companies and to make progress.
“These are of course not normal figures”, he then clarified in the afternoon during the report of the Council of Ministers.
Phitrust, which announced in a press release last week that it had voted against the 2021 compensation report presented by Stellantis, also expressed in this text its reluctance towards such compensation.
“Is this fee, which is the highest of major companies in France (and probably of publicly traded groups in the European Union) justified for a person who is not the creator of the company, but only the manager?” asks the management company.
“Is this extremely high compensation socially responsible as the group is likely to experience massive restructuring resulting in job losses,” she adds.
Phitrust believes that the government has a responsibility in this matter, as the French state is the third shareholder of Stellantis, namely through Bpifrance, which owns 6.15% of the capital.
The group’s general meeting will be held via video conference from the Netherlands, where its headquarters are located, from 3:00 PM (1:00 PM GMT).
(Written by Myriam Rivet and Gilles Guillaume, edited by Bertrand Boucey)
