Shiseido Pays Foreigner More Than Company President

[Mulboyne]

Nikkei: Shiseido Forked Over Y121mn To President In FY09
Shiseido revealed Thursday that it paid President Shinzo Maeda 121 million yen in compensation last fiscal year. Vice President Kimie Iwata and Corporate Executive Officer Carsten Fischer were handed 66 million yen and 141 million yen, respectively. The cosmetic firm's 15 directors and corporate auditors received a combined 621 million yen, according to Shiseido's Web site. Around 40% of the executive pay at Shiseido is based on a set figure, while roughly 60% is performance linked, gauged by stock prices and progress in achieving earnings targets. Fischer's salary surpassed the president's because he has a higher set figure. And his performance-linked payment topped Maeda's due to solid profits at the international business division, which Fischer oversees. Shiseido is the first firm to publish executive pay since a Cabinet Office order, implemented at the end of March, began requiring listed companies to disclose data about executives whose annual compensation totals at least 100 million yen. Most firms, however, are expected to reveal the information after general shareholders meetings. Iwata's salary was disclosed because of her representative rights.

[Yokohammer]

I was perfectly satisfied with my life until I read that.

11,750,000 JPY per month?
I could probably live OK on that ...

[xenomorph42]

I was perfectly satisfied with my life until I read that.

11,750,000 JPY per month?
I could probably live OK on that ...

I can see my Timeshare in the Florida Keys now....

[Kanchou]

Sports figures and movie stars aside, I still don't see how anyone can be justified being paid over $1 million a year for a management job. These guys can't do anything that a room full of business students couldn't do.

[Greji]

Sports figures and movie stars aside, I still don't see how anyone can be justified being paid over $1 million a year for a management job. These guys can't do anything that a room full of business students couldn't do.

You're unemployed, I see.....

[FG Lurker]

Sports figures and movie stars aside, I still don't see how anyone can be justified being paid over $1 million a year for a management job. These guys can't do anything that a room full of business students couldn't do.

The big difference being these guys have the job and the room full of business students don't.

[GomiGirl]

Sports figures and movie stars aside, I still don't see how anyone can be justified being paid over $1 million a year for a management job. These guys can't do anything that a room full of business students couldn't do.

This is the beauty of a free market economy... find somebody willing to pay you a certain figure and you can get paid. These guys were able to work their way into a position where they can demand these salaries from Shiseido or jump to a different company that will pay.

Is it fair to the wage slaves below them - probably not. But who said life was fair?

If you have a problem with it, take it up with the share holders.

[Kanchou]

You can justify paying $1,000,000 salaries to people who have saved, or made the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

But think about all the engineers and designers who make less than $100,000 a year who come up with billion-dollar game-changing ideas who get no more than a token promotion and "employee of the year." The only difference between them and the seven-figured salary guys is the title of their job.

I'm not unemployed, I'm severely underemployed. There's a difference

[Samurai_Jerk]

You can justify paying $1,000,000 salaries to people who have saved, or made the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

But think about all the engineers and designers who make less than $100,000 a year who come up with billion-dollar game-changing ideas who get no more than a token promotion and "employee of the year." The only difference between them and the seven-figured salary guys is the title of their job.

Paying shitty CEO millions of dollars for managing a company into ruin makes no sense and it seems companies are starting to realize that (Unfortunately, they'll probaly forget as soon as the economy is back on track). However, if you think the only difference between a designer and a good CEO is job title, you understand absolutely nothing about anything.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I've got no problem with this guys making big bucks. His efforts brought a lot of money into Shiseido and he was rewarded appropriately. It is obscene that he can make so much and the average punter makes so little, but he did what he was asked to do, and more. It's pretty hard to be critical of that. I know what his terms were and he was rewarded because he recorded such excellent results. It's the way it should be. And Shiseido should be commended for giving a round-eye a chance because it's extremely rare in the Japanese corporate world to go so far...good luck to him, I say.

[Kanchou]

However, if you think the only difference between a designer and a good CEO is job title, you understand absolutely nothing about anything.

I was exaggerating.

[GomiGirl]

You can justify paying $1,000,000 salaries to people who have saved, or made the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

How are you wanting to justify this? Morally? Ethically? Commercially?

As I said, this is probably not fair or an equal distribution of wealth/company profits but as this is a company the only people they have to answer to in this matter is their share holders. There are no laws being broken other than the laws of common sense...

I do remember my first taste of this in high school where it took me a while to get my head around the fact that the job of the oil cartels was to attain the highest price possible. I remember naively asking the teacher why they were trying to charge the highest price the market will bear. Isn't the nice thing to do is to try to keep the prices low so everybody could afford petrol better.. oh how innocent I was.

[Kanchou]

I mean business-wise. It makes more sense pay people performance bonuses based on real numbers than an arbitrarily-high salary... IE, $100,000 to come to work, and $900,000 more if the company does exceedingly well.

That way you're not paying someone $1,000,000 to drive the company into the ground, and you can at least afford to keep people doing their jobs for as long as possible.

[Mulboyne]

Shiseido revealed Thursday that it paid President Shinzo Maeda 121 million yen in compensation last fiscal year. Vice President Kimie Iwata and Corporate Executive Officer Carsten Fischer were handed 66 million yen and 141 million yen, respectively.

Fischer got 440 million yen this year and Maeda got 130 million. Fischer's leap in pay reflected performance bonuses.

Source (Japanese)

[ChargerCarl]

I agree with Kanchou to an extent. I don't mind top executives making good money, but the excess we see today (especially in finance) is beyond ridiculous. People like to pretend that income is derived from some universal merit-based formula, but its not.

For example, wages have been stagnant for 90% of Americans for 30 years now even though their productivity and hours worked have risen. Meanwhile, executive pay is 10x what it was a generation ago. I wouldn't be surprised if Japan has exhibited the same trend (although to a lesser extent)

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Apologies for being a pinko here, but paying executives into the millions of dollars (or whatever the currency) at any company anywhere is fucking obscene no matter how much they bring in.
Not only are these punters rolling in the cash, a huge chunk of their millions comes through dividends, on which they only pay a 5% tax. They're not only cheating their employees scraping by on wages only, close to half of which eventually ends up in some way going to the government, they're also cheating the taxman.
Surely those who can most afford to pay tax should be doing so, right?
There should be a legal mandated cap on wages at every company anywhere. If people don't like it and say it's goddamned communist, then make it easy for them to be entepreneurs and reward them for employing more people and paying them decent wages.
Anyway, two bob's worth from a disastrously failed businessman, but consoled by having morals if not money.