Loblaws gave Galen Weston a $3M raise last year, filings show | CBC News

Galen Weston got a 55 per cent raise for running Loblaws last year, after management consultants hired by the company his family controls determined he was underpaid.

Regulatory filings for Loblaw Cos Ltd. show that Weston, the scion of one of Canada’s richest families, took in just over $8.4 million in salary, bonuses and stock-based compensation last year as CEO of Loblaws, the grocery chain his family controls.

That was a 55 per cent increase from the just over $5.4 million in total compensation he got in 2021. In 2020, Weston earned $3,549,591 in total compensation from Loblaws.

Weston’s compensation bump was first reported by The Globe and Mail.

Weston also earns compensation from his role as the head of George Weston Ltd., the holding company that controls most of the family’s wealth via voting control of Loblaws, the real estate arm, Choice Properties, and other assets.

But it is his status as head of Canada’s largest domestic grocery chain that has earned him and the company the ire of consumers this year, as families struggle to pay ballooning grocery bills that have grown by more than 10 per cent in the past year.

Weston was among numerous executives grilled by lawmakers at a parliamentary subcommittee last month, probing the high cost of food. “It doesn’t go to me,” Weston said of the company’s profits, which hit a record high of just over $1.9 billion last year. “It goes back into this country.”

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At a committee hearing in Ottawa this week the heads of Loblaw, Metro and Empire Foods faced tough questions from parliamentarians about why food prices continue to skyrocket. All three pushed back forcefully against allegations they are profiteering from high inflation.

Weston’s compensation increased last year partly on the recommendation of Meridian Compensation Partners, an outside consultancy hired by the grocery chain in 2020 to make sure Loblaws’ executive compensation plans were within acceptable benchmarks.

Meridian was paid $122,806 in 2022 and $118,574 in 2021, Loblaws says, to review the company’s executive compensation policies.

‘Below the market median’

That review found that most of the company’s upper management was being paid in line with internal targets and external benchmarks, but Weston himself was not.

“The results of the 2022 review provided that Mr. Weston’s total direct compensation was below the market median and Loblaw’s compensation policy objective,” the company’s management proxy circular for last year said.

As president of the company, Weston earned a base salary of $907,200, but also nets numerous types of stock-based compensation. The company’s short-term incentive plan was recently increased so that he can get up to 160 per cent of his base salary, while the long-term incentive program was upped to 560 per cent. Both ratios are higher than those for any other executive at the company.

Other executives at the company also saw their compensation increase, even as that review found that the formulas for compensation were within acceptable ranges. Chief financial officer Richard Dufresne saw his total compensation go from just over $1.8 million in 2021 to more than $5.4 million last year.

And chief operating officer Robert Sawyer’s total compensation rose from $7.4 million in 2021 to just over $9.3 million last year — more than Weston himself.

In addition to his duties as president, Weston is also chairman of the company’s board. He is one of the only members of the board who received no compensation for board duties last year. He’s also the only member of the upper management team not entitled to any sort of severance should he be terminated from his role as president, and he is the only member of upper management not entitled to a pension.

Similar trend elsewhere

While Loblaws has become the main focus of consumer ire in the current era of food inflation, executive compensation plans at other grocers are in line with those at Loblaws and also headed in the same direction: up.

Eric La Flèche, the CEO of grocery chain Metro Inc., took in $5.3 million in total compensation last year, according to the Montreal-based company’s management proxy circular. That’s up from $5,018,907 the year before.

Michael Medline, the CEO of Halifax-based Empire Company — which owns Sobey’s, Safeway, FreshCo, Foodland and other grocery brands — took in $8,651,285 in total compensation last year. That was an increase from just over $7.4 million the year before, but actually down from the more than $13 million earned in 2020, when he was granted more than $8 million in stock options alone.