Board of director (BOD) and CEO compensation is a divisive topic even in normal times. How much is too much? What is the right compensation relative to performance?

Post GE14, critics of Malaysian government-linked companies (GLC) have gone on social media to accuse them of overpaying their CEOs. There does appear to be  political agenda at work to find an excuse to axe certain people at GLC.

To provide some clarity and insights, we have put together a 16-page pullout of a complete list of total BOD Compensation for all companies that are listed on Bursa Malaysia.

Among the 24 GLCs listed on Bursa Malaysia, our findings show that the Petronas group of companies – Petronas Dagangan Bhd, Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd, Petronas Gas Bhd and MISC Bhd paid the least board compensation relative to performance.

Outside the four in the Petronas group and among the big cap GLCs, it appears that board compensation at CIMB Holdings Bhd and Tenaga Nasional Bhd are among the most appropriate i.e. the BODs delivered the results for the amount of compensation they received. Their respective BOD Performance Index score was 23.83% for CIMB and 18.8% for Tenaga compared to the median of 5.92%.

CIMB also delivered the highest returns to shareholders in 2017 of 48.27% while UEM Edgenta saw returns of -21.15%.

For more details on how much all the public-listed companies on Bursa Malaysia have paid their BOD, pick up the latest issue of The Edge.

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