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1. CEO Remuneration 2022 Report: CEOs in a Post Covid Era - What Matters Most
2. Executive Summary - CEO Remuneration 2022: CEOs in a Post COVID Era - What Matters Most

Key Findings – Realigning Pay, Perks, And Productivity

Global Dimension

• In regions where marked progress toward energy transition has been recorded, such as Europe and the US, Tech companies earned the largest revenue in 2021 although Telecoms (which may also pass as tech companies) paid the highest in terms of CEO pay packets. In Asia and Africa where the drive for energy transition is at the tethering stages, energy companies earned the largest revenue. But the point of departure is however that Tech companies tend to reward their CEOs the most in Asia while in Africa Energy companies recorded the highest CEO pay.

• Among Tech companies, CEO Remuneration is highest in Europe, using the example of T-Mobile which paid a total basic pay of US$9.03m and an allowance of US$8.3m to its CEO. Africa’s Naspers paid the highest on the continent (US$1.45m) while Amazon paid the highest in the Americas. In Asia China Mobile paid the highest.

• The Index shows that an increasing number of firms are embracing stock awards as a form of CEO remuneration. For instance, Tesla paid its CEO Elon Musk a total of US$10.08bn (100%) in stock awards, and Apple paid Tim Cook a total of US$837m (98%) by way of stock awards. Peter Rawlinson of Lucid received a total of US$570m (98%) in stock awards. This is a reflection of the fact that Tech companies generate value from balance sheet gains and reward their CEOs accordingly.

Nigerian Dimension

• The Top 5 highest Paid CEOs in Nigeria in 2021 were Herbert Wigwe of Access Bank (N1.68bn or US$2.89m), Roger Thompson Brown of Seplat who ranked second (N610m or US$1.05m) Airtel’s Olusegun Ogunsanya who came in third place with a total remuneration of N590m (or US$1.02m), Michael Purchercos of Dangote earned a total of N531m (US$0.91m) to rank fourth in 2021 while UAC’s Folasope Aiyesimoju ranked fifth having earned N497m (US$0.85m).

• Herbert Wigwe rose from (N1.33bn) third place in 2020 to first place in 2021, and Roger Brown rose from 10^th place N358.1m in 2020 to N610m in 2021. Ogunsanya of Airtel, Khaled El-Dokani of Lafarge, and Yusuf Binji of BUA made a first-time entry into the top ten list. Michael Purchercos rose from 7^th place (N448m) in 2020 to N531m in 2021.  Fola Aiyesimoju retained the fifth spot although he saw a 9.8% reduction in his overall compensation. Aiyesimoju’s basic salary dropped from N216m to N96m in the period.

• The list of the top ten highest-paid CEOs is still dominated by companies in the Industrial sector, the Banking sector, and the Energy sector showing the dominance of traditional sectors. While MTN and Airtel represent the Tech sector, this marks a departure from the trend in Europe and US.

• In the Industrial Sector, Dangote Cement’s Michael Puchecos received a total remuneration of N531m to rank as the highest paid in the sector. The CEOs of Lafarge(N391m), and BUA cement (N320m) came in in the second and third places while the CEO of Notore Chemicals who received N154m in the period came in fourth place.  CEO salary and PBT mismatches have in times past led to a situation where high-performing and under-rewarded CEOs are hired by larger organizations   

• In the Banking Sector, Access bank’s Herbert Wigwe earned the highest in overall compensation with a total of N1.18bn (US$2.03m), N1.06bn of which was earned from Dividends. Zenith Bank’s Ebenezer Onyeagwu came in second place with a total remuneration of N447.69bn (US$772,000). GTCO’s Segun Agbaje earned the third highest in the Banking Sector with total compensation of N268.84bn (US$463,000).

• Of the top ten remunerated CEOs the most equitably remunerated CEO was that of Zenith Bank, whose remuneration was an equivalent of 0.35% of the staff cost. The CEOs of Nigerian Breweries, and Julius Berger received an equivalent of 0.5% of staff salaries. Those of MTN and Dangote Cement both received an equivalent of 0.7% of staff salaries. While the pay of the CEOs of Lafarge, Seplat, Guinness and Unilever received amounted to 1.1%, 2%, 2.4%, and 4.5% of their respective organization’s personnel expenses. On average the 10 firms paid an equivalent of 1.5% of staff cost to CEOs as annual remuneration.

• Of the top ten remunerated CEOs, the most efficient CEOs were those of Zenith Bank, MTN, and Dangote. For each Naira received as remuneration, the CEO of Zenith Bank generated Pre-tax Earnings of N3112, and the CEO of MTN generated Pre-tax Earnings of N1186.67. The CEO of Dangote generated Pre-tax Earnings of N1013, while the CEO of Seplat generated N149.53, that of Julius Berger generated N34.67, and Lafarge N215. 

• A comparison of the Revenue of Nigeria's largest companies to the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Nigerian Sub-nationals shows that MTN alone generated more revenue in 2021 than the top four IGR-generating states combined. While MTN generated a total of N1.65trn in 2021, Lagos State generated a sum of N753.46bn, Rivers State raised N123.25bn, Kaduna State generated N52.86bn, and Delta State managed to generate N80.2bn. Similar patterns were observed when comparing the revenue generated by Airtel (N1.65tr) and Dangote (N1.34trn) on the one hand with revenue generated by Nigerian states (see illustration 12 below).

Illustration 12: