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According to Sibanye-annual Stillwater’s recent annual report, CEO Neal Froneman received a whopping R300 million ($18.9 million) in 2021.
The platinum mining CEO received R300.3 million ($19 million) in salary for the year ending in 2021, according to the group’s newly disclosed annual suite of reports — a staggering amount even when compared to his remuneration of R62.73 million ($3.98 million) in 2020.
Froneman received a basic salary of R12.42 million ($788,730) in 2021, plus a cash bonus of R7.8 million ($495,340), plus an additional R264 million ($16.77 million) in conditional share profits.
The group’s executive directors and prescribed officers, including Froneman, were also rewarded handsomely, with remuneration totaling R804.9 million ($51.1 million) — 84 percent of which came from conditional share proceeds.
Froneman, who was appointed CEO in 2013 when the company was established out of Gold Fields’ former South African gold mines, has led the company to new heights.
Sibanye expanded into platinum group metals (PGMs) through the acquisitions of Anglo American and Lonmin platinum mines in Rustenburg, as well as the Stillwater mine in Montana, a deal that expanded the company’s footprint beyond South Africa but was heavily criticized at the time for being too expensive and putting the company at risk of breaching its debt covenants.
When PGM prices began to rise in 2020, they remained robust until recently, with rhodium and palladium reaching new highs. As a result, the company has made record profits, while stockholders have received record dividends. The company’s stock price has risen 300 percent in the last three years, from R14 ($0.889) per share in April 2019 to R55 ($3.5) per share today.
The R300-million ($19.05 million) bonus is mostly due to the rising share price.
According to James Wellsted, a representative for Sibanye-Stillwater, the base wage increase for Froneman and management was inflation-linked at 5 percent or less.
The vast majority of the huge raises in pay come from share incentive plans, in which employees were given shares that vested in 2021 and received the benefits of the skyrocketing stock price.
According to the company’s remuneration report for 2021, the company’s remuneration strategy favors a pay mix that is slightly more performance-oriented than market practice by offering more incentive exposure, with the total guaranteed package pitched slightly lower.
Froneman’s large paycheck comes as the business continues to face a wage strike at its troubled South African gold mines, which has lasted more than six weeks due to a lack of agreement between Sibanye and the gold miners.
