The head of Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker, earned more than 17 million euros (US$22 million) last year, the firm said on March 12, a record amount for the boss of a major German company.
Martin Winterkorn earned a total of 17,456,206 euros in 2011, more than doubling his salary the previous year, according to Volkswagen's annual report.
The salary was broken down into 1.89 million euros in basic pay, a bonus of 11.04 million euros and a "long-term performance bonus" of 3.67 million euros. The remaining 860,000 euros was pay not received in 2010.
The sum "is the highest ever earned by the head of a company in the DAX" index of leading German companies, said Michael Kramarsch, a lawyer at the specialist firm Hostettler, Kramarsch and Partner (HKP).
The previous record was held by Deutsche Bank boss Josef Ackermann, who earned 13.98 million euros (US$18.3 million) in 2007.
However, companies outside the DAX have occasionally paid their executives more, said Kramarsch. Former Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking earned 60 million euros (US$78.7 million) in 2007.
According to HKP, the average salary of the chiefs of the 16 DAX companies which have already published their annual reports was 5.91 million euros (US$7.76 million).
Earlier Monday, VW posted 2011 sales of 159.3 billion euros, a gain of 25.6% on a 12-month basis, along with a 57% leap in operating profit to 11.3 billion euros.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012
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