The executive president of Naturgy, Francisco Reynés, raised his salary by 5% in 2022 after the gas company scored the best result in its history. A total of 5.85 million euros was pocketed.
Reynés received 2.83 million euros as compensation in cash, according to the annual report on the remuneration of directors sent by the company on Tuesday to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). In addition to his salary as executive president, he received a contribution of 2.95 million euros in his pension plan, compared to 2.73 million the previous year, as well as 71,000 euros for other items. It should be noted that Reynés is the only director with this remuneration formula.
The director, who is serving his term this year, sent a message to the board of directors at the press conference to present the results ahead of the next general meeting of shareholders, which is expected to be held in March. “I would like to stay longer as president,” he stressed. One of his main objectives is to complete Geminis, the project launched just a year ago to divide the gas company in two and separate the liberalized and regulated businesses.
The split was suspended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Reynés continues to believe in it. “The analysis carried out to date confirms the suitability and strategic sense of the Geminis project, but its execution schedule must be readjusted to the current market environment and its volatility, to the evolution of the European energy context and its regulatory uncertainties, many of which which are still in the process of being defined”, stated Naturgy in its annual report for the 2022 financial year.
In total, Naturgy’s board of directors, made up of 13 members, received remuneration of 8.51 million euros in the past financial year. On its side, the average remuneration of the company’s staff increased by 5.61%, going from 58,281 euros to 61,548 euros.
Repsol
Other energy managers who raised their salaries last year was the CEO of Repspol, Josu Jon Imaz. The sole executive member of the company’s board of directors, Imaz earned 4.13 million euros in 2022, which represents an increase of 3.5% compared to 2021, after the oil company also reported the highest profit in its history without extraordinary. For his part, the president, Antonio Brufau, scored 2.81 million, 1.4% more.
The salaries of managers in the sector are becoming known as the fight against the energy tax (and banking) approved by the Government has intensified. Last Friday it was known that the National Court had rejected the precautionary suspension of the order of the Ministry of Finance to impose a temporary tax on energy income and large banking entities, thus denying Repsol’s own request to apply measures.
Oil has recorded the impact it will suffer from the tax at 450 million euros. The employers’ association of the large electricity companies Aelec, which brings together Iberdrola, Endesa and EDP, also announced last week that it had filed a contentious-administrative appeal before the National Court against the tax, thus following in the footsteps of the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks ( CECA) and the Spanish Banking Association (AEB).
On their side, Iberdrola -which presents results this Wednesday- and Endesa have calculated the impact at 400 million euros, while Naturgy, which is not part of the electricity employers’ association and has not yet clarified whether it will appeal it, has estimated it at 300 millions. As explained on Tuesday by the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the banks and large energy companies have paid a total of 1,454.5 million euros in the first installment of the payment.
Montero has detailed that the energy tax has collected a total of 817.4 million and the bank, 637.1 million. Thus, he has announced that after this first payment, the annual collection will exceed 2,900 million euros in line with the provisions of the Executive
