Euan Sutherland has been the CEO of Superdry Plc (LON:SDRY) since 2014. First, this article will compare CEO compensation with compensation at similar sized companies. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. Third, we’ll reflect on the total return to shareholders over three years, as a second measure of business performance. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid.
See our latest analysis for Superdry
How Does Euan Sutherland’s Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies?
At the time of writing our data says that Superdry Plc has a market cap of UK£641m, and is paying total annual CEO compensation of UK£3.2m. (This figure is for the year to 2018). We think total compensation is more important but we note that the CEO salary is lower, at UK£714k. As part of our analysis we looked at companies in the same jurisdiction, with market capitalizations of UK£313m to UK£1.3b. The median total CEO compensation was UK£989k.
As you can see, Euan Sutherland is paid more than the median CEO pay at companies of a similar size, in the same market. However, this does not necessarily mean Superdry Plc is paying too much. We can get a better idea of how generous the pay is by looking at the performance of the underlying business.
You can see, below, how CEO compensation at Superdry has changed over time.
Is Superdry Plc Growing?
On average over the last three years, Superdry Plc has grown earnings per share (EPS) by 15% each year. In the last year, its revenue is up 16%.
This demonstrates that the company has been improving recently. A good result. It’s a real positive to see this sort of growth in a single year. That suggests a healthy and growing business.
It could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future.
Has Superdry Plc Been A Good Investment?
Since shareholders would have lost about 49% over three years, some Superdry Plc shareholders would surely be feeling negative emotions. It therefore might be upsetting for shareholders if the CEO were paid generously.
In Summary…
We compared total CEO remuneration at Superdry Plc with the amount paid at companies with a similar market capitalization. We found that it pays well over the median amount paid in the benchmark group.
Importantly, though, the company has impressed with its earnings per share growth, over three years. Having said that, shareholders may be disappointed with the weak returns over the last three years. One might thus conclude that it would be better if the company waited until growth is reflected in the share price, before increasing CEO compensation. CEO compensation is one thing, but it is also interesting to check if the CEO is buying or selling Superdry (free visualization of insider trades).