고연봉 CEO 성과는? 한국은 3년만, 미·영 5~10년간 따진

While domestic listed companies have begun implementing "linkage disclosure of remuneration and performance" this year, international major countries still have a long way to go. Currently, Korea only presents the remuneration and performance indicators for the past three years, whereas the United States requires five years and the United Kingdom demands ten years.

To reduce the illusion created by remuneration fluctuations at the time of stock option exercises, the remuneration calculation methods are more detailed. For example, Microsoft's 2024 shareholder meeting statement showed the CEO's and key executives' remuneration, total shareholder return (TSR), and net profit for five years (2021-2025) in one table, alongside the TSR of the Nasdaq Computer Index, which is composed of major IT companies in the United States.

The UK pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, presents a ten-year range. Both companies display the trends of these indicators in graphs, allowing shareholders and stakeholders to compare them at a glance. While both companies follow the guidelines from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the UK's Companies' Registration Office, their disclosure systems are designed to show the rise and fall of management remuneration and the shareholders' returns from stock price fluctuations and dividends in a single timeline.

In contrast, Korea only presents the remuneration and operating income or total shareholder return of the CEO and general employees in a single table. Both countries must also disclose the gap between management and general employee remuneration. For instance, Apple's 2026 shareholder meeting statement showed that in the 2025 accounting year, Apple CEO Tim Cook's total compensation was $742.9 million (around 1028 billion Korean won), which is 533 times the median employee compensation ($139,483) and 533 times the median (176 times) and 118 times the top 25% of employee compensation.

This allows for a comparative analysis of the CEO's remuneration with that of general employees. To mitigate the illusion that management remuneration suddenly fluctuates due to stock option exercises, the system also provides a layered comparison of remuneration. Unlike Korea, the United States includes stock option profits in the remuneration for the year of exercise, spreading the cumulative stock option gains over several years.

For example, if a stock option's value was 100 at the end of the first year and increased to 120 due to a stock price rise, only the $20 increase would be reflected in the CEO's compensation for that year. However, this retrospective adjustment is not applied to Korea's remuneration-linked disclosure. The stock option exercise profits are reflected directly in the CEO's compensation for the year of exercise, leading to the illusion that the company awarded additional substantial compensation to the management for the year, even though the actual profits from the exercised options are incorporated into the compensation for that year.