Goodman employees are now earning an astonishing average $682,000
Employees at Goodman Group are now getting paid an average salary of $682,000, an increase of about 5 per cent, as the warehouse and data centre giant delivered bumper earnings this year.
But Greg Goodman, who founded the company and is now its chief executive, has seen his pay packet shrink, falling from $26.7 million to $20.3 million after the board decided to trim his performance bonus.
At Goodman, the ultimate pay of every employee is closely linked to the company’s performance as it expands a global portfolio of logistics facilities and data centres. Earnings jumped almost 10 per cent in the 2025 financial year and Goodman expects another 9 per cent lift this financial year.
Employee remuneration is a combination of take-home pay and an award of securities in the company, which vest over time. The worth can vary according to the stock price. Remuneration per employee was about $647,000 in the 12 months to June last year, based on Goodman’s calculations.
The actual value of the performance rights granted to employees through the incentive scheme was $362 million last year. It has risen to $419 million. But the pie is being carved between more staff overall, with the head count rising to 1030 in the 2025 financial year, up from 980 a year earlier.
At the top of the tree is Goodman himself, whose base pay over the last financial year remained steady at $1.4 million. Add to that $19.9 million in performance rights. A year earlier, however, his long-term performance rights were worth $25.3 million, taking total remuneration to $26.7 million.
Three years ago, Goodman’s total remuneration hit a high of $44.3 million, prompting a shareholder backlash despite a surge in the share price.
The board, led by Stephen Johns, has paid some heed to shareholder disgruntlement after more than a third of shareholders voted against the company’s pay plan at their annual meeting last year.
The face value of Greg Goodman’s long-term incentives were reduced by 11 per cent, Mr Johns noted in the 2025 annual report. “Reductions in LTI awards have been made to demonstrate acknowledgement of the concerns expressed last year by some investors and proxy advisers.”
With $84 billion in assets under management, Goodman consistently delivers strong earnings growth. It is leaning ever harder into the rollout of data centres around the world to meet soaring demand from artificial intelligence applications and cloud computing.
Despite its success, its generous remuneration packages, especially for its founder and his top executives, have been a frequent target of criticism by proxy advisers. Last year’s protest against the company’s pay plan was the fifth time since 2016 that Goodman has suffered a strike.
Proxy advisers said hurdles to awarding the provisional $500 million in incentive options to its employees were not high enough.
A second strike at this year’s annual meeting would force a vote on whether to spill the board. If that were to succeed, it would force all Goodman directors to seek re-election. Goodman suffered a second consecutive strike at its 2022 annual meeting, but almost 99 per cent of shareholders subsequently voted against a resolution to spill the company’s directors.
