Lewis says its CEO should be paid 23% more
· Citizen
Listed furniture retailer Lewis Group says an independent benchmarking survey found that the fixed remuneration of its CEO, Johan Enslin, was below the 25th percentile of the peer group. Based on this, his remuneration would require a once-off increase of 23%.
The group’s remuneration committee (Remco) says “at its discretion” it decided to align the chief executive officer’s total guaranteed pay over a number of years and granted an increase of 12.3% effective 1 April 2025.
Visit rouesnews.click for more information.
Enslin received total guaranteed pay (TGP) of R8.715 million in the 2026 financial year, according to its recently published annual report.
The group appointed REM Solutions to conduct two benchmarking surveys in 2025 and 2026.
It says: “The scope of both remuneration surveys was to benchmark the total guaranteed pay, short-term and long-term incentives, remuneration mix and performance levels in relation to short-term incentives with a peer group which included mainly listed retail companies. A review of non-executive directors’ fees was also included.”
Targets achieved
In 2025, Enslin received total remuneration of R58.9 million, the bulk of which (R35.4 million) comprised share awards under its executive retention scheme across a matching award, three-year award and five-year award.
The shares vested in July 2025. He was also paid a cash performance bonus of R14.7 million in the year. This total remuneration was 70% greater than the 2025 amount (R34.6 million).
According to the Remco report, Lewis’s “profit before taxation target was exceeded by 10.2%, and consequently, in terms of the rules of the scheme, executives and senior management qualified for maximum cash bonuses”.
It has six targets – revenue, gross profit, operating costs, satisfactory paid customers, collection rates and profit before taxation – and all were achieved in FY 2026.
The group says the average remuneration of the top 5% of its South African staff is R982 008 per year, while for the bottom 5% it is R69 103 per year.
The remuneration gap ratio between these two cohorts is 14.2 times.
Interestingly, it is technically not compelled to disclose these, as the listed entity “Lewis Group” has no employees. It says, however, that it prepared this disclosure, which is now required under Section 30B of the Companies Act, “in the spirit of the legislation”.
The Cape Town-headquartered group pays hefty dividends (its dividend yield is currently 10.66%), which means its total return over that period was 244%.
Non-executive directors’ fees
It says that in the “2026 survey, the review of the non-executive directors’ fees indicated that the level of non-executive director remuneration was in line with the peer group, with the exception of the base fee for directors and the fee applicable to the chairperson of the risk committee”.
“In order to achieve closer alignment with peer group remuneration levels, these proposed fees were increased above the average non-executive remuneration adjustment, effective 1 July 2026.”
This sees a 20.4% jump in the fees paid to the chair of the risk committee (currently Daphne Motsepe) from 2027 (R295 000) and a 7.8% increase in the base fees paid to non-executive directors (R468 000).
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.