This firm pays its 3300 workers an average of $1.2m a year
Vitol Group doubled the amount its staff earned last year as it notched up record profit of $US15.1 billion ($22.4 billion), thanks to the wild swings in energy markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The trading house paid an average of just over $US785,000 ($1.2 million) each in salary and bonuses to its 3311 employees, compared with the previous year’s average of $US394,000, according to the company’s audited annual accounts seen by Bloomberg News.
Russell Hardy, chief executive officer of Vitol Holding, pictured in June this year. Bloomberg
That’s before taking into account the shareholder payouts to the roughly 450 top executives and traders who also own the company and received $US2.5 billion in 2022, and another $US2.5 billion in the first half of 2023, according to the accounts.
The figures highlight the vast windfall that commodity traders like Vitol have enjoyed on the back of the volatility caused by the invasion of Ukraine, and how – in an industry where many of the largest players remain privately owned – the benefits have accrued to a small number of individuals.
Together, top commodity traders Vitol, Cargil, Glencore and Trafigura Group made net profits of nearly $US50 billion last year – five times the average over the previous decade. Among them, only Glencore is a public company.
Vitol’s net profit of $US15.1 billion in 2022 was a 258 per cent increase on the previous year, itself a record, and more than the largest oil trader had made in the previous six years combined.
The $US785,000 average compensation per employee compares favourably with Wall Street’s top investment banks – it is more than double the level at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, whose average compensation per employee last
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