MH doubles CEO and CFO remuneration in 2024
February 2, 2025
Tawanda Karombo
Harare -
RMH Holdings doubled CEO Brian Roberts and chief financial officer Ellen Marais salaries and rewards in 2024 as the company seeks to retain senior executives although there was no adjustment to the executive directors’ fixed pay.
RMH also did not pay any short-term incentives, while executive directors did not receive any new annual long-term incentive. However, due to the special dividend paid in January 2024, new replacement awards were made to compensate for the value that participants lost on their historically awarded awards.
As CEO, Roberts’s salary went up from R2 million in 2023 to R4m in 2024 while incentives and share schemes brought up his total awards for the year to R18.7m compared to R13.8m a year earlier.
The total awards for Marais also went up from R6.9m in 2023 to R10.1m last year, including a salary hike from R2m to R4.1m.
On joining RMH in December 2022, Roberts was offered the opportunity to receive financial assistance from RMH of up to R50m in loans, with interest charged at the official interest rate. His shares in RMH Property served as collateral for the loan.
“Upon joining, Roberts exchanged his existing integer exposure for carry participation in RMH Property. Combined with a sign-on award, the value represented a 4% carry exposure to RMH Property’s net asset value growth with a hurdle rate of 1%,” said the company.
RMH remuneration committee chairman, Murphy Morobe, said the company’s remuneration practices “seek not only to incentivise and retain top talent but to do so in partnership with shareholders, while upholding the company’s values, ethics and business” strategy.
“The strategic drive to orderly monetise the underlying portfolio assets remains top of mind and informs the committee’s approach to ensuring the effective management of RMH’s long-term incentive strategy,” said Morobe.
In line with this, the company had agreed that its investment executives would participate up to a maximum of 10% of the portfolio, based on a portfolio value of R2 billion. Herman Bosman, RMH non-executive chairman and head of the teams, had his participation capped at 2.5% of the 10%.
“The total value at work would therefore be R50 million, which equalled annual participation of R5m for an investment horizon of 10 years. Upon termination of his employment, Herman Bosman retained his participation.”
Bosman said in the annual report, “While the South African economy continues to face low GDP growth, high unemployment and persistent fiscal challenges, there are encouraging signs of improvement in the business environment.
“Structural reforms, such as enhancements in energy infrastructure, improved efficiencies in rail and port operations and moderating inflation, are fostering a more stable outlook. These developments, coupled with easing interest rates and the recovery in property fundamentals, provide a cautiously optimistic foundation for RMH’s future,” he added.
BUSINESS REPORT