This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Britain’s best-paid woman earned over $300 million last year, more than Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, or any other CEO of an S&P 500 company.
Denise Coates is the CEO and majority shareholder of Bet365, a privately held gambling business. Using the current dollar-pound exchange rate, she received the equivalent of a roughly $280 million salary and at least $60 million of dividends for the year to March 2023, a Companies House filing shows.
For comparison, Schwarzman was paid $253 million last year, while Pichai received $226 million in total compensation, according to the AFL-CIO rankings. Other high-profile CEOs earned far less, including Apple’s Tim Cook ($99 million), Microsoft’s Satya Nadella ($55 million), and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon ($35 million).
Coates’ payout rose by the pound equivalent of $10 million last year, even though Bet365 swung from a nearly $64 million profit to a $93 million pre-tax loss as it expanded internationally. The company also donated about $127 million to her charitable foundation, matching its contribution in 2022.
The gambling boss has received the equivalent of $1.3 billion in total pay and dividends over the last few years, including $535 million in 2020. Forbes ranks her as the world’s 373rd richest person with a nearly $9 billion fortune.
Private companies are often more generous than their public peers in paying their bosses and doling out dividends. Their compensation practices and broader corporate governance attract less scrutiny, and they don’t face the same risk of an activist investor building an equity stake and pushing for changes. Also, public companies often have boards that decide CEO remuneration, while many bosses of private businesses are free to set their own pay.
