DAX Board Members 2025: 42-Fold Pay Compared to Workforce

The DSW is the largest organization for private investor engagement in Germany. According to its own statements, it represents the interests of shareholders and, from this perspective, takes a position on remuneration issues. Chief Executive Marc Tüngler placed the results in the context of a broader debate about the appropriateness of executive salaries.

Background: How the DSW Calculated

Tüngler said verbatim: "Die Zahlen passen zu dem grundsätzlichen Eindruck, dass sich die Rolle und eben auch die Vergütung der CEOs zunehmend von den ordentlichen Vorstandsmitgliedern abheben." He thereby pointed out that the pay dynamics in the front row are particularly strong and that the situation between Chief Executive Officers and the other board members continues to diverge.

The DSW analysts see the rise in board compensation in an environment of rising profits and rising share prices. DAX-listed groups such as SAP, Allianz, Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, and Deutsche Telekom are among the largest payers in the current reporting season. The US companies Apple and Microsoft, which are listed in the Dow Jones, are used by the DSW as an international benchmark, without being included in the national calculation.

The DSW analysis was prepared under the overall direction of the DSW executive management and with academic support from the Technical University of Munich. Co-author Frank Bethmann is responsible for the statistical preparation. The database is the 2025 fiscal year, in which the reports of the groups were submitted for the 2026 Annual General Meeting season."

Reactions and Consequences

With the publication, the DSW wants to increase pressure on investors and supervisory boards to engage more intensively with the logic of remuneration. In the coming weeks, the regular Annual General Meetings of the DAX-listed groups are scheduled, at which the remuneration systems will in some cases be put to a vote again. Investors can vote against remuneration reports there, even though this has rarely had practical consequences so far.

The economic backdrop is provided by a persistently high interest rate level in Europe and a volatile but recently friendly stock market environment. Industry observers also interpret the pay explosion as the result of competition for international top managers. US companies in particular, such as Apple and Microsoft, lure with lucrative stock packages, prompting German groups to follow suit in order to remain competitive in the talent race.

International Comparison and Outlook

The DSW acts as an advocate for private shareholders and wants to inform its own members about board compensation. It advocates for greater investor participation and insists on a clear, comprehensible measure of success to which parts of variable compensation are tied. The DSW therefore sees the upcoming Annual General Meeting season as a litmus test for the effectiveness of the remuneration system.

Internationally, the debate is being conducted most intensively in the USA and the United Kingdom. There, too, board compensation is criticized for its high sums and opaque structures. The DSW points out that the situation in Germany, with the cited ratio of 42 to 1, stands out particularly prominently in international comparison. It wants the publication to contribute to a more fact-based debate and calls for a differentiated view of the various components of board compensation.

The DSW announced that it would deepen the evaluation in the coming years. Planned among other things is a more detailed breakdown by industry, by company size, and by the role of individual board portfolios. This is intended to show where the largest jumps are occurring and which business models can justify particularly high compensation or, conversely, be considered excessive.

The DSW makes its analysis available free of charge to private investors and intends to use it as a basis for voting advice at the Annual General Meetings. Investors can thus better assess whether they want to approve a group's remuneration system or not. The DSW thus sees its own role as an intermediary between corporate management and the capital side strengthened.