Whitey Basson deserves R100m pay – Shoprite

Basson deserves every cent of the R100 million salary that Shoprite has paid out to him.

This is according to the group, who released a statement through its remuneration committee after news of Basson’s pay made headlines yesterday.

Business Day reports Basson’s regular pay amounted to R50 million a year, while his performance bonus was a total of R50 million.

READ THIS: Mbeki speaks out against leaders who are ‘thieves’ and self-serving

Shoprite justified this by stating Basson had steered the company excellently during trying economic times. He had not received any short-term incentive payments, nor had he received benefits from any long-term incentive plans in the past five years, the committee said.

“Recently, in SA, it has become a trend for retailers to recruit their CEOs from multinational retailers outside of SA. Hence, it is evident that the war for talent in this space is not confined to the African continent.

“It is common market knowledge that both locally and internationally, the group has outperformed its peer companies over the past 10 years in terms of growth and shareholder return,” the committee said.

Meanwhile on Twitter, Basson’s salary and bonus has elicited strong reactions from people questioning how he has pocketed such an exorbitant amount of money while workers in the store take home as little as R3 000.