In terms of pay, 2024 was a bumper year for the 21 long-standing bosses of the largest Irish publicly quoted companies, driven by big bonuses paid by companies that exited the Dublin stock market and moved their primary listings to New York.
Figures compiled by The Irish Times show that their average pay package rose by 31 per cent to €4.36 million last year. Peter Jackson, chief executive of New York-listed gambling giant Flutter Entertainment, led the way with a package worth the equivalent of €18.9 million.
He is followed by Tony Smurfit, the head of packaging giant Smurfit Westrock, with remuneration of €12.7 million, and Albert Manifold, the former chief executive of building materials group CRH, with earnings of €11.6 million. Both of those companies are now listed in New York and have quit the Dublin stock market.
All of the 21 top earners in our analysis for 2024 were men. Former Glanbia chief Siobhán Talbot and ex Ires Reit chief executive Margaret Sweeney fell out of this year’s table, having stepped down from their respective posts.
The median chief executive compensation package, which gives a better picture of the pay landscape as it eliminates the distorting effects of outliers on the pay scales, rose by 16 per cent to €2.53 million. That’s 56 times the median salary in Ireland, of about €45,000.
Variable pay was fuelled across the board by rising share prices – in a year in which the Iseq All-Share Index rose 11.3 per cent and the FTSE All-World index soared 12.3 per cent – and corporate earnings.
The figures include chief executives of Irish companies listed on the Iseq 20 index in Dublin with a market value of more than €100 million, the FTSE 350 in London, and groups that have moved their main listings to Wall Street in recent years – and saw their remuneration plans beefed up by their boards to fit in with the locals.
Each chief executive had been in their role for at least two years at the end of their company’s latest annual financial period.
The pay outlook for top Irish executives for this year remains relatively positive – for now at least.
The Iseq All-Share index has gained almost 19 per cent so far this year, having soared by more than a third since April 2nd when global markets baulked at US president Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs announcement. The FTSE All-World is up almost 12.5 per cent.
However, analysts have been busy taking red pens to their earnings growth estimates for companies globally in recent months as Trump’s erratic trade policies and warnings on tariffs weigh on consumer and business confidence.
The consensus for earnings per share (EPS) growth across companies listed on the pan-European Stoxx 600 index is currently about 2 per cent for 2025, according to London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) data. That’s down from 8 per cent pencilled in at the start of the year.
US earnings growth projections have fallen back to about 9 per cent from 15 per cent.
The result of EU trade talks with the US in the coming days, amid efforts to avert Trump’s threatened 30 per cent charge on most European imports kicking in from August 1st and likely retaliatory action from Brussels, will play big role in the bonus packages of leaders of listed companies.
[ ECB holds rates as Trump tariff talks go to the wireOpens in new window ]
Peter Jackson, chief executive of Paddy Power’s parent, Flutter Entertainment, was the best paid Irish boss last year on the most widely recognised remuneration measure that includes basic pay, cash bonuses, stock awards under long-term incentive plans (LTIPs), pension contributions and other benefits.
Flutter’s remuneration committee lowered Jackson’s basic salary by 13.5 per cent to $1.39 million (€1.18 million). However, this was in order to significantly increase the chief executive’s potential performance-related remuneration to, as Flutter said in its annual report, align with US market practices – after it moved its main listing in May 2024, ditching its Irish quotation in the process.
The 49-year-old – who has seen Flutter’s market value increase more than fourfold to over $53 billion under his leadership since early 2018, driven by the acquisition of sports betting company FanDuel in the US – saw his total remuneration soar 185 per cent last year to $22.2 million, or €18.9 million.
It was turbocharged by $17 million of stock awards. Amy Howe, chief executive of FanDuel, received $11.5 million.
The group’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) jumped 26 per cent last year to $2.36 billion.
Flutter’s transfer of its main stock quotation to the US, home to the most liquid stock markets in the world, has left it contending with even more revealing pay disclosure rules brought in by the Securities and Exchange Commission in late 2022.
They require listed companies to outline a new pay calculation, known as compensation actually paid (CAP), which includes the effect of recent changes in the value of current and potential stock holdings. Under that measure, Jackson’s package came to an eye-watering $37.9 million.
[ Smurfit Westrock merger: CEO Tony Smurfit’s pay package recorded as €19.5mOpens in new window ]
Smurfit Westrock’s chief executive, Tony Smurfit, also benefited from a new and improved LTIP as he pushed through a deal to create the world’s largest cardboard box-maker by merging Smurfit Kappa and US rival Westrock – and holding on to Westrock’s New York listing.
The group, which traces its roots back to Tony’s grandfather, Jefferson Smurfit, buying a small box-making business in Rathmines in the 1930s, has a market capitalisation of almost $25 billion.
Smurfit’s pay jumped 134 per cent last year to $14.9 million (€12.7 million), fuelled by stock awards. The figure came to $21.3 million when the accounting treatment of existing stock options was tweaked after the July 2024 merger.
Under the CAP metric, the Smurfit boss of a decade had a total remuneration package of $27.9 million last year.
Albert Manifold, the usual top earner among Irish chief executives in recent times, dropped to third place in his final year in charge of CRH, the building materials and services giant that also delisted from Dublin in 2023 and chose the Big Apple for its main stock quotation.
His remuneration dipped 1.3 per cent to $13.6 million . On a CAP basis, it amounted to $39.6 million – driven by the company’s strong stock performance during the year.
Manifold was named this week as incoming chairman of UK oil giant BP. His successor at CRH, Jim Mintern, could receive total remuneration of up to $14.8 million this year if the company hits various performance and share price targets set down by the board.
Kerry Group, which agreed to sell its dairy processing business in two phases late last year, might have only delivered 3.4 per cent sales volume growth in its key taste and nutrition business in 2024. However, its chief executive, Edmond Scanlon, enjoyed a 32 per cent hike in his remuneration, to €6.04 million, helped by earnings per share rising almost 10 per cent and the company’s stock price rallying 19 per cent.
In fifth spot was Steve Cutler, the chief executive of Nasdaq-listed clinical trials company Icon. His remuneration declined by 34 per cent to the equivalent of €4.83 million in a year in which the group’s stock lost more than a quarter of its value as the wider sector was hit by drugmakers dramatically cutting their research and development (R&D) budgets amid high interest rates.
Eamonn Rothwell, head of Irish Ferries owner Irish Continental Group (ICG) and a 19 per cent shareholder in the business, saw his total remuneration jump 42 per cent to €4.47 million.
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which advises large investors on annual general meeting (AGM) votes, urged investors to reject the ICG’s remuneration plan at the group’s latest meeting in May. The recommendation was in line with its stance on a number of previous occasions and centres on the same argument: a lack of clarity from ICG over the targets on which the chief executive’s bonus is based. Almost 15 per cent of shareholders voted against the remuneration policy at the meeting.
The biggest decliner on the pay front was Kingspan chief executive Gene Murtagh, whose total package slid by 42 per cent to €2.53 million, mainly as a result of a drop in total shareholder returns as the insulation group’s shares fell.
ISS had something to say about Cavan-based Kingspan’s new pay policy, which will mean future executive salaries increase by 9 per cent and maximum bonuses rise to 200 per cent of base pay from 150 per cent. The policy also raises maximum annual long-term incentive plan awards to the chief executive to 450 per cent of salary from 300 per cent.
[ Markets climb on back of Japan-US trade deal signingOpens in new window ]
Still, ISS said qualified support was warranted at Kingspan’s AGM in May, given the company’s growth since executive incentives were last subject to material changes six years ago. Revenue, earnings per share, employee numbers and scale have grown significantly since then. Some 97.5 per cent of shareholders supported the plan.
Bank of Ireland chief executive Myles O’Grady secured a 28 per cent pay increase last year, to €1.37 million. This was driven by €238,000 of stock – the equivalent of 25 per cent of basic salary – being awarded to the banker by the board. This was the result of the last Government lifting pay restrictions at Bank of Ireland after the State sold its remaining shares in the group in late 2022.
The fixed share allowance is not tied to any performance conditions and, therefore, gets around an ongoing Government ban on bonuses above €20,000. The allowance is set to rise to 50 per cent of O’Grady’s €950,000 base salary this year, before doubling, again, to 100 per cent in 2026.
AIB and PTSB are widely expected to introduce fixed-share allowance schemes for top executives in time, after Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe removed restrictions on fixed pay in both banks last month.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary qualified in May for share options worth more than a net €100 million to the businessman after shares in the carrier closed at over €21 for 28 consecutive days. However, the 64-year-old will have to stay at Ryanair until the end of July 2028 to collect what is on track to be one of the largest such payouts in European corporate history.
O’Leary’s reported annual remuneration in recent years has included accounting charges relating to the potential cost of the massive options plan. His package fell 18 per cent last year to €3.83 million as the company took a smaller charge.
O’Leary has also taken some of his existing chips off the table in recent months, raising €45.5 million by selling shares in Ryanair in two transactions – one in early June and one this week. The stock sold accounted for just 4.3 per cent of the chief executive’s stake in the Irish airline as of the end of March.
The chief executive remuneration packages of Irish companies that have shifted their main listings to Wall Street may have become more like what you’d expect for US companies. The median total compensation of S&P 500 chief executives last year was $17.1 million, according to a study from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.
However, the cream of the crop are in another league altogether when compared with their Irish counterparts.
The top-earning chief executive globally last year was Jim Anderson, head of Pennsylvania-based Coherent Corp, the maker of high-precision lasers and light-based tools used in science, medicine and industry, according to executive intelligence company Equilar. His total package came to $101.5 million, almost entirely made up of stock awards. His basic salary was just $81,538.
The new chief executive of out-of-sorts coffee chain Starbucks, Brian Niccol, hired in September in the hope he can replicate the turnarounds he led at Taco Bell and Chipotle, was given a stock-laden compensation package totalling $95.8 million, putting him in second position.
Larry Culp, who became chief executive of General Electric (GE) in 2018 and went to split the former unwieldy conglomerate into three companies, secured an $87.4 million package in 2024 as chief executive of GE Aerospace, one of the three and legal successor to the original GE. The pot included a $50 million stock bonus that will be paid out if he hits certain financial targets through the end of 2027.
Culp’s CAP? A mere $285 million.