Ricardo Dunn
THE Mail & Guardian approached 19 of South Africa’s top public companies for information about executive salaries. Of the 19, none was prepared to reveal individual packages.
Some companies, like Anglo American and Rembrandt, gave aggregate figures for the board as a whole — which is a requirement of company law anyway. Most companies would say little more than “no comment” or “this is proprietary information”. Some said they would consider full disclosure but would wait and see whether others were prepared to do the same.
The companies approached by the M&G are the 14 largest South African-registered companies in terms of market capitalisation listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and five major black-owned listed companies.
Nedcor representative Sue Niehaus said there was no requirement by law to disclose individual directors’ remuneration, but the company would accommodate the idea when it saw any such move by other companies. The company said its total directors’ emoluments for services as Nedcor directors and for managerial services to subsidiary companies amounted to R8-million. It did not say how many directors shared this amount.
Anglo American, which shares its chief executive, Julian Ogilvie Thompson, with Anglo American Industrial Corporation and De Beers, would not reveal his or other individual directors’ remuneration packages. It gave a cumulative figure for 36 executive directors which added up to an average of R560 000 per director per annum. Anglo communications officer Simon Crawford said the corporation supported the King corporate governance code of 1994, which recommended greater transparency. He claimed Anglo was the first to implement all recommendations.
Anglo submitted its position to the King Committee in 1993: “If the recommendation on the [individual] disclosure of directors’ emoluments was enforced by the JSE, then only companies listed on the JSE would be obliged to disclose … This would be inequitable.” Crawford said Anglo would not release individual remuneration until it became a Companies Act requirement.
South African Breweries (SAB) said it had an obligation to each employee to keep details of individual remuneration confidential, unless specific disclosure was required by law. SAB said the King Committee recognised this and that the company conformed to the King recommendations.
Sasol referred to an aggregate disclosure in its latest financial report, and stressed that it “supports the main recommendations of the King Committee”, and that its Compensation Committee, responsible for determining directors’ pay, consisted only of non- executive directors.
Some companies gave no reason for not supplying the information asked. Three — African Life, Metropolitan and Liberty Life – — said their chief executives were on holiday and that they could not be reached for comment. Corporate Africa replied through Barbara Vassard, secretary of CEO Jonty Sandler: “The answer is no. The chief executive is not prepared to comment.” New Africa Investments’ Nthato Motlana, Gencor chief executive Brian Gilbert and Goldfields of South Africa’s Alan Wright failed to comment.
Real Africa Holdings, one of the few companies in South Africa which has a black chief executive, said if it decided to disclose Don Ncube’s salary, it would “have to be with his blessing” and that of the executive committee.
First National Bank said remuneration was “a personal matter”.