Guess who are the highest paid bosses in Singapore

Their pockets are fatter by more than $0.5m.

In a report released today, Hay Group, the global management consultancy, said that the median total pay for Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in the finance sector outperformed their counterparts in other industries by over half a million dollars. 

Hay Group‟s Singapore Top Executive Remuneration Report 2013 analysed remuneration data from 263 listed companies in the Singapore Exchange (SGX) of various sizes across nine major industry sectors, with a focus on CEOs and top executive remuneration practice (pay level and pay mix) as well as the alignment between CEO remuneration and annual performance.

Top executives include key functional executives comprising of Chief Operation Officers (COOs), CEOs of subsidiary companies, top Finance executives, top Human Resource executives and top Marketing executives.

A close examination of pay practices by industries revealed that CEOs in the finance sector received the highest median total remuneration of S$2.88 million, followed by those in the property sector at S$2.3 million, and those in the hotels/restaurant sector at S$1.6 million.

The Hay Group report also revealed that deputy CEOs and COOs are the second-highest paid key executives in publicly-listed companies at a median total remuneration of S$481,000. Hot on their heels are CEOs of subsidiary companies and divisional/regional operation heads (both at S$375,000). 

Comparatively, the median total remuneration for other key functional executives, including top Finance executives, top Human Resource executives and top Marketing executives is lower, ranging from S$250,000 to S$338,000.

Meanwhile, sectors such as finance, property and multi-industry saw a higher median total remuneration for their key functional executives. Topping the list, key executives in the finance sector received S$958,000, with those in the property and multi-industry sectors following suit at S$552,000 and S$525,000 respectively.

These tend to correspond with higher profit levels of companies in the property sector (S$161 million), finance sector (S$92 million), and multi-industry sector (S$89 million) in financial year (FY) 2011/2012. The profit level of companies in other sectors ranged from S$10-30 million in the same FY.