Highest-paid directors in 2026 revealed- As seen in BOSS (AFR)
Highest paid Directors 2026
Mineral Resources non-executive chairman Malcolm Bundey is this year’s highest-paid director, taking home a $14.9 million pay packet that dwarfs the sums paid to the chairs of Australia’s biggest companies.
Bundey’s remuneration swamps that of much better-known chairmen [https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/leaders/the-highest-paid-most-powerful-andinfluential-directors-revealed-20260312-p5o9zy], such as John Mullen of Qantas, Brambles and Treasury Wine Estates; Michael Chaney of Wesfarmers; Mark Barnaba of Fortescue; Scott Perkins of Woolworths, and Ross McEwan of BHP. All are among the 10 highest-paid directors, earning more than $1 million each in 2025-26. The top 10 include four mining directors. Evolution Mining chairman Jacob Klein, who earned $2.3 million in board fees, is second on the list. The others are Barnaba, Bundey and McEwan. Klein’s fees include $1.64 million in share-based payments as a carry-over from his long-running tenure as executive chairman. Other chairs among the 10 highest-paid S&P/ASX 300 company directors, calculated for BOSS by governance platform OpenDirector [https://www.opendirector.com.au/], include Philip Krause of biotech company Mesoblast; Tom Pockett of Insurance Australia Group, and Duncan West of Suncorp and Challenger.
Bundey’s remuneration package opens a broader governance debate on whether company directors, typically paid set fees, should be eligible for performance pay. The existing and proposed ASX corporate governance rules [https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/asx-backtracks-on-strict-diversity-targets-eyesbonus-changes-20260721-p60h32], currently being rewritten by a panel led by former Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe, do not support this. But the use of long-term incentives for directors is on the rise. The number of ASX 300 companies offering an incentive of more than $100,000 to directors has increased from 29 to 36 over the past two years,
OpenDirector finds. The debate is separate from the governance question of directors holding shares in the company. Bundey’s performance pay was largely supported by investors. Mineral Resources’ major shareholders, along with the Australian Shareholders Association and the key proxy firms ACSI, Glass Lewis and Ownership Matters, backed his options grant, with 82.6 per cent of MinRes shareholders in favour at last year’s annual general meeting. ASA chief executive Rachel Waterhouse says the organisation is against performance pay for company directors, but there were special circumstances in the case of Bundey.
“We considered the exercise price and the hurdles attached to the options, together with the significant amount of personal capital Mr Bundey would need to invest to exercise them. On balance, we considered that there were sufficient reasons to support the proposal,” she says. CGI Glass Lewis local research head Philip Foo agrees, but says it should not become a precedent. “His package is pretty wild, especially for a nonexecutive, though it was negotiated at arm’s length while the company was in crisis,” he says.
“We don’t consider him an independent chair as a result. I don’t think boards are or should be looking at this as a precedent to follow.” The MinRes chairman role certainly came with plenty of danger money [https://www.afr.com/rear-window/chris-ellison-s-stealth-10m-airline-buyout20260706-p60d0u]. Bundey’s base fee was $750,000. The remaining $14.1 million came from the accounting value that was reported in the annual report for performance-based options granted to him. Bundey was granted 780,000 options by shareholders at last year’s AGM across three tranches with a multi-year performance period (FY26, FY27 and FY28) and with share price vesting hurdles ($30, $35 and $40 respectively). The options all have a $25.40 exercise price.
The company says the incentive package has been worth the money. The MinRes share price hit a low of $14 in early April last year, but is now back at close to $55, lifting its market capitalisation to more than $10 billion. And the company reported its best result in 20 years last month [https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/chris-ellison-set-for-17m-windfall-as-minresreinstates-dividend-20260824-p60r2k], recording a net profit of $1.2 billion, up from the $896 million loss reported a year earlier. “Bundey joined the MinRes board in May 2025 and was appointed chair during the most challenging period in the company’s history, tasked with restoring shareholder confidence,” said a spokesman. “The grant only delivers value to him if a substantial and sustained share price increase is achieved, ensuring strong alignment with shareholders and reflecting the required time commitment.”
Bundey was a private equity executive and is deputy chairman of Sydneybased building materials company Brickworks. He previously served as the chief executive of the Pratt family’s packaging group, Pact, for the billionaire son-in-law of Richard Pratt, Raphael Geminder. “I have a great relationship with Mal, he is a good operator,” Geminder tells BOSS. “Mal has a lot of experience working with entrepreneurs and, while I don’t know this for a fact, I am sure he will be all over the governance piece.” The MinRes share price and Bundey’s performance-based pay have delivered. The first tranche of 200,000 options vested in July with a hurdle of $30 per share and exercisable at $25.40. At today’s share price of about $55, that first parcel (minus what he’d pay to exercise) is worth about $5.92 million. These options are yet to be exercised.
The remaining options vest next year and in 2028, with hurdles at $35 and $40. That means Bundey is sitting on a pay package worth more than $30 million – even if he needs to pay $19.8 million to exercise the options into shares.
-Patrick Durkin, Editor-in-Chief BOSS, Australian Financial Review.
