Meet Gideon Muriuki, Kenya's Best Paid CEO at Sh30 Million Monthly Pay

Co-op Bank's Gideon Muriuki has emerged as the best paid Chief Executive Officer (CEO) among his peers leading public listed companies in the country.

An annual report by the leading banking institution shows that Mr Muriuki pocketed Sh370 million in the year ended December 2017. Of the Sh370 million, the CEO was paid Sh99.8 million in salary and a further Sh270.7 million in bonuses.

This means that Muriuki earned more than Sh1 million per day and over Sh30 million every month. The report shows that the bank paid Muriuki Sh92.6 million in salary and allowances the previous year, meaning he received a Sh7 million pay hike in 2018.

At Sh370 million, Muriuki took home Sh100 million more than what Joshua Oigara, the chief executive of Kenya’s largest bank KCB made. Oigara's pay stood at Sh256 million. Muriuki's annual pay is also more than five times the Equity Bank’s James Mwangi, who takes home Sh60 million.

KCB is biggest bank in the country with Sh646.7 billion asset base, followed by Equity with Sh524.5 billion total assets. Co-op has an asset base of Sh386.9 billion.

In the annual report, Co-op Bank says Muriuki's pay is a reflection of natural accruals from his long service and his role in transforming the bank from a loss-making company to one of the country’s biggest lenders.

“Under the performance driven culture, it is noteworthy that the bank has progressively improved profitability from a huge loss of Sh2.3 billion in 2000 and an asset base of Sh22.3 billion to the current profit before tax of over Sh16.4 billion and an asset base of almost Sh400 billion,” Co-op Bank says in its remuneration report.

Co-op recorded a first net profit of Sh164.7 million in 2002 under Muriuki's watch, having been hired an year earlier. The profits rose in following years to reach Sh11.4 billion at the end of December, 2017.