Shell board proposes raising CEO pay package

LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) - Shell's board ​will ask shareholders to increase the maximum pay package for the CEO at ​its ‌May 19 annual meeting to align incentives with pay at peers ⁠active in similar geographies and industries, Shell's annual ⁠report showed. CEO Wael Sawan's ​pay package was 13.8 million pounds ($18.47 million) for 2025 compared with 8.6 million pounds in the previous year, the report showed on ​Thursday, ‌reflecting the first time he could tap the full CEO policy as part of a three-year cycle after taking the helm in 2023, according to a Shell spokesperson.

The rise was also ​due to Shell's total shareholder returns outpacing peers in recent ‌years. For the next pay cycle, the board suggests increasing CEO pay by raising the target level ‌of performance share awards by half to 450% of salary. The maximum is 900%.

"The proposed quantum change moves the CEO's ​total pay from around 25th percentile to just below median of the updated ‌pay benchmarking group," the report said. Shell's annual profit of around $18.5 billion last year was more than a fifth below 2024's amid weaker ⁠oil prices ⁠and trading and chemicals results, but it ‌kept the pace of its bumper share buyback programme and dividends. Shareholder distributions ​over a three-year ​remuneration cycle underpin Sawan's level of pay.

Total ‌pay would have been higher without four fatal accidents in Argentina, Malaysia and Britain in the past year, the report said.

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