French CEO gives €1.6m bonus to employees

Starterre, a car dealer based in Lyon suburb Saint-Fons, under CEO Jean-Louis Brissaud, is to split the amount not according to seniority, but according to how long each employee has been with the company, reports French magazine site Radins.

The longest-serving employees could see as much as €35,000, and even those who have been with the company for under three months are set to receive €500 each.

The money comes from the company’s successful profit, after the business grew by 28% in 2017.

Starterre is not the only company to offer serious extra rewards for its staff recently; last year, UK insurance company Admiral celebrated the retirement of CEO Henry Engelhardt with a gift of £7.3 million (€8.1 million) across its 8,000 employees, including 170 employees in France who each received £1,000 (€1,140).

In India, the founder of the Hari Krishna export company Savi Dholakia gives his employees gifts every year on the Indian festival of Diwali. Last year, he is said to have given out 400 flats and 1,200 cars, worth €6.9 million in total.

In Egypt, CEO Nevzat Aydin went further. After selling his company last year, he gave each of his 114 employees - who usually earn between €1,000 and €1,700 per month - a one-off bonus of €215,000 each, worth a total of €24 million.