South Africa’s millionaire banking bosses – raking in R635 million a year

South Africa’s banking CEOs are multi-millionaires, with the top executives of the nation’s biggest banks earning a combined R635 million in their last full financial years.

Overall, Investec Group CEO Fani Titi had a single-figure remuneration package of £5.24 million (R121 million) despite seeing his pay package decrease by 30.2% for the 2024 financial year.

Investec’s group revenue increased by 20.9% in rand terms from £1.99 billion (R40 billion at the time of the original report) to £2.09 billion (R49 billion) for the financial year ended 31 March 2024.

Its headline earnings per share also increased by 22.7% in rand terms to 72.9 pence (R17.16), and the group upped its total dividend by roughly 28.07% to 34.5 pence (R8.12) per share.

Second overall was Nedbank’s now-former CEO, Mike Brown, whose pay package increased from R33.2 million in 2022 to R92.5 million in 2023.

Nedbank saw its headline earnings increase by 11% to R15.7 billion following increases in revenue and associate income growth of 12% and cautious expense management that enabled pre-provisioning operating profit (PPOP) growth of 15%.

That said, growth was partially offset by a 30% increase in its impairment charge. However, this was improvement from the 57% increase in the first half of 2023.

Standard Bank, South Africa’s largest bank in terms of assets under management, saw its headline earnings increase by 27% from R33.9 billion in 2022 to R42.9 billion in 2023.

Thus, Group CEO Sim Tshabalala saw his single-figure total remuneration increase by 49.6% from R55.7 million in 2022 to R83.3 million in 2023.

Capitec’s headline earnings also increased by 16% to R10.6 billion for the financial year ended 29 February 2024, after interest income grew by 13% to R14.9 billion.

Therefore, Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie saw his pay rise from R62.1 million to R65.7 million.

FirstRand, South Africa’s biggest bank by market cap and the holding company of FNB and RMB, saw several leadership changes over the year. On 1 April 2024, Mary Vilakazi replaced Alan Pullinger as Group CEO.

In his final financial year, which ended on 30 June 2024, Pullinger earned R60.7 million, while Vilakazi earned R40.6 million.

Jacques Celliers, former FNB CEO and FirstRand’s new executive in charge of its Fintech strategy, also saw his remuneration rise from R31 million to R48.6 million.

Harry Kellan, who took over from Celliers on 1 April, took home R42.3 million, while RMB CEO Emrie Brown’s pay package was R42 million.

Despite raising a R3.0 billion accounting provision for a UK motor commission review, FirstRand’s headline earnings increased by 4% to 679 cents per share.

The lowest earner of all significant banking CEOs was Absa’s Arrie Rautenbach, who took home R40 million in 2023 – a drop from R44 million in 2022.

Although Absa’s headline earnings per share increased marginally by 1% to 2,422.3, the group’s final dividend dropped by 12.7% to 685 cents per share.

Amid a further drop in headline earnings in the first half of 2024, CEO Arrie Rautenbach is entering early retirement.

ABSA CIB CEO Charles Russon will take over as Interim CEO of the Absa Group.

Overall, the 10 CEOs earned a combined R636 million – over R100 million more than the prior year:

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