What Did BNP Paribas SA's (EPA:BNP) CEO Take Home Last Year?

Jean-Laurent Bonnafe became the CEO of BNP Paribas SA (EPA:BNP) in 2011. First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at other large companies. Next, we'll consider growth that the business demonstrates. And finally - as a second measure of performance - we will look at the returns shareholders have received over the last few years. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid.

View our latest analysis for BNP Paribas

How Does Jean-Laurent Bonnafe's Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?

At the time of writing, our data says that BNP Paribas SA has a market cap of €60b, and reported total annual CEO compensation of €3.4m for the year to December 2018. We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at €1.6m. We took a group of companies with market capitalizations over €7.2b, and calculated the median CEO total compensation to be €3.2m. (We took a wide range because the CEOs of massive companies tend to be paid similar amounts - even though some are quite a bit bigger than others).

So Jean-Laurent Bonnafe receives a similar amount to the median CEO pay, amongst the companies we looked at. While this data point isn't particularly informative alone, it gains more meaning when considered with business performance.

You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at BNP Paribas, below.

Is BNP Paribas SA Growing?

BNP Paribas SA has increased its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 1.8% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). It achieved revenue growth of 1.8% over the last year.

I'd prefer higher revenue growth, but I'm happy with the modest EPS growth. It's clear the performance has been quite decent, but it it falls short of outstanding,based on this information. Shareholders might be interested in this free visualization of analyst forecasts.

Has BNP Paribas SA Been A Good Investment?

With a total shareholder return of 6.9% over three years, BNP Paribas SA has done okay by shareholders. But they probably wouldn't be so happy as to think the CEO should be paid more than is normal, for companies around this size.

In Summary...

Remuneration for Jean-Laurent Bonnafe is close enough to the median pay for a CEO of a large company .

We see room for improved growth, as well as fairly unremarkable returns over the last three years. While there is room for improvement, we haven't seen evidence to suggest the pay is too generous. So you may want to check if insiders are buying BNP Paribas shares with their own money (free access).

If you want to buy a stock that is better than BNP Paribas, this free list of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.