French Bosses Dominate List of 20 Highest Paid Executives

Half of the top 20 highest-paid corporate executives in Europe last year were running French companies, according to a survey, and despite numerous headlines about fat cat pay among British bosses just two of the remainder were from the UK.

The region's highest-paid boss was Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of the French carmaker Renault, according to research by Board-Ex published in the US magazine Fortune. He took home $45.5m (£22.2m) last year thanks to $43m worth of share options.

The pay packet of Mr Ghosn, who was born in Brazil of Lebanese descent but grew up in France, was seven times higher than in the previous year. The figure does not include the cash he receives as boss of Nissan. Renault bought a controlling stake in Nissan eight years ago, with Mr Ghosn becoming the first foreigner to take charge of a major Japanese company.

Mr Ghosn's pay packet from Renault will soften the impact of the promise he made to Nissan shareholders last month that the board would forgo their bonuses this year because of the firm's poor performance.

In second spot last year was Paris-born Jean-Paul Agon, chief executive of L'Oréal, which snapped up Body Shop last year, who was paid $19.3m last year; while Alessandro Profumo, chief executive of Italian bank UniCredit, was third with $18.1m.

Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, was the fourth highest-paid European boss last year, collecting $15.2m. The only other British boss in the top 20 last year was Fred Goodwin of Royal Bank of Scotland. He came in at number 16 with a pay package of $7.8m.

In 2006, the top 20 took home 59% more than the highest-paid bosses had collected in the previous year.

The survey includes a disproportionate number of French executives because they rely on share options more than other European countries. The survey, of companies on the Fortune Global 500 list, did not take account of long-term incentive plans, which are widely used in the UK.