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Good morning, Nick Visser here to snag the blog. Let’s get to it.

Luca Ittimani

Luca has more on ACSI’s CEO pay report, which reveals that Life360’s founder Chris Hulls was the top-paid chief executive of an Australian-listed company in 2025’s financial year.

Hull earned $47.7m in realised pay, which was about 437 times more than the average Australian full-time adult worker.

The other top earners were also heads of ASX-listed companies headquartered overseas: ResMed’s Mick Farrell took home $35.1m and News Corp’s Robert Thomson $33.5m. Thomson had been last year’s top earner.

Out of the 200 biggest ASX-listed companies, the CEO with the lowest realised pay in 2025 was Temple & Webster’s Mark Coulter at $506,000.

ACSI’s Louise Davidson said Australian investors were doing a good job at keeping a lid on executive pay. Fixed pay for the top 100 companies rose 4% to a median $1.83m, still below 2012 levels. The difference is made up by bonuses: the median ASX100 CEO received 70.7% of their maximum bonus, on the higher end. Just five CEOs missed out on their bonus. Nine CEOs received termination payments averaging $2.2m each.

Top 100 CEOs paid a median $4.8m in 2025, analysis shows

Luca Ittimani

Chief executives of Australia’s 100 biggest companies earned a median $4.8m in realised pay in 2025’s financial year, a 16% increase from 2024, a new report has found.

The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors has calculated take-home pay, which includes reported pay plus bonuses, vested shares and other extras.

At the 100 biggest ASX companies, the $4.8m median was the highest recorded over the 12 years the calculations have been done. Two Australian-based CEOs had realised pay above $30m – Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake and Goodman’s Greg Goodman – where none did in 2024. Incumbent CEOs tended to see higher pay gains. The average hit $6m.

ACSI found the gap between top CEOs and ordinary workers was the same as in 2024, with chief executives again earning 55 times the average Australian adult’s weekly full time earnings as of May 2025. Average earnings have slowed since then so the gap may have widened.