PARIS (Reuters) - French utility Engie (>> Engie S.A.) board chairman Gerard Mestrallet's 350,000 euro (277,664 pound) salary will go to the Engie Foundation charity and Mestrallet will carry out his new job for free, the company said.
Mestrallet, the former chief executive and chairman of Engie, on Tuesday handed over the CEO role to former Engie CFO Isabelle Kocher and will remain as chairman.
Jean-Louis Beffa, head of Engie's nominations and remuneration committee, said that from this month onwards, Kocher would have an annual fixed salary of 1 million euros, a variable salary between 700,000 and 840,000 euros, and 120,000 performance-related performance units.
"Isabelle Kocher will have an extremely reasonable salary, about one third below the level of chief executives of companies of similar size," Beffa said.
An Engie spokeswoman said the performance units have a value of 7.73 euros each. This would put the value of Kocher's units' at 927,600 euros, and her total package at a maximum of 2.77 million euros if all performance criteria are met.
Executive pay levels have attracted close scrutiny in France in recent months.
Last week, carmaker Renault (>> Renault) stuck by its decision to pay Carlos Ghosn 7.2 million euros ($8.2 million) for 2015, defying a shareholder vote against the chief executive's package.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; editing by David Evans and David Clarke)
