JLL — one of the world's largest brokerage companies — is blaming currency exchange rates for its top earner making less last year than in 2021.
CEO Christian Ulbrich's total pay fell to $12.05 million in 2022 from $12.85 million the prior year, according to a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's in part because Ulbrich, who is based in Germany, prefers to be compensated in euros than U.S. dollars. JLL is based in Chicago.
Ulbrich was not the top-paid CEO among publicly traded brokerage firms. CBRE CEO Bob Sulentic earned more than $25.9 million in total compensation in 2022 while Cushman & Wakefield CEO John Forrester's earned roughly $8.6 million. Both CEOs saw their total earnings increase year over year.
Ulbrich's salary fell from nearly $971,000 to roughly $889,000, according to the filing. The euro weakened considerably against the dollar last year and became equal to the dollar for the first time in two decades in July. On April 14, $1 was worth roughly 0.91 euros.
Ulbrich has served 18 years at JLL.
"The year over year change in Mr. Ulbrich's base salary reflects the difference in applicable exchange rate rather than a change in base salary in local currency," according to the filing.
Meanwhile, the rest of JLL's executives saw modest salary increases of roughly $4,000, according to the filing. CFO Karen Brennan, CEO of Markets Advisory Gregory O'Brien, co-CEO of JLL Technologies Yishai Lerner and co-CEO of JLL Technologies Mihir Shah all are paid $500,000.
Ulbrich also saw his non-equity incentive plan compensation fall from $4.5 million in 2021 to roughly $1.4 million in 2022, according to the filing. JLL also stopped paying for the CEO's car allowance last year. After spending roughly $16,000 on the executive's car through July 31, the company reported that effective Aug. 1, 2022, there was "no monetary value associated with the lease and car allowance benefit," according to the filing.
That said, Ulbrich saw his stock awards climb from $7.3 million in 2021 to $9.7 million in 2022, according to the fling.
"Increases in target awards in 2022 for Mr. Ulbrich and Ms. Brennan were done to bring their total compensation in line with competitive market practices and to reflect their strong performance in their respective roles," according to the filing.
Ulbrich wasn't alone in seeing his total compensation fall. Brennan saw total compensation decline from $5.3 million to $4.1 million; O'Brien saw total compensation decline from $6.47 million to $4.5 million; Lerner saw total compensation decline from $10.47 million to $4.27 million; and Shah saw total compensation decline from $10.47 million to $4.27 million.