Klarna's CEO got an 862% pay rise ahead of its IPO
Klarna's impending IPO on the New York Stock Exchange is set to benefit all the employees holding Klarna stock, but CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski will benefit much more than most. In the BNPL fintech's F-1 filing with the SEC, it revealed that Klarna's co-founder more than octupled his total compensation (TC) in 2024. The bulk of that bump was in the form of Klarna equity.
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Siemiatkowski received TC of $22.5m in 2024. This consisted of a $3m cash salary, an $800k bonus, $400k in other benefits and pension expenses, and a massive $18.3m in equity compensation which the fintech said "includes mostly fixed compensation paid to him in the form of equity awards as part of his yearly salary as our chief executive officer."
In Klarna's 2023 annual report, Siemiatkowski received 23.6m Swedish Krona, worth roughly $2.34m. The report does not disclose how much of this is in cash vs stock.
Siemiatkowski's pay was already a source of dispute. Last October, board member Mike Walther claimed he was ousted after he contested the board's compensation policy for the CEO. Walther was thought to be an ally of co-founder Victor Jacobssen who still has more than 30,000 ordinary shares in Klarna according to the F-1. Jacobssen departed the company back in 2012 and is thought not to be on good terms with Siemiatkowski.
It's not just the CEO getting a pay bump at Klarna, however. Average 'salaries and other remuneration' per employee rose massively from $87k in 2023 to $115k in 2024. Total spending on this figure was up last year despite headcount falling by over 900 people to 3,422 in the same period.
Klarna said in the F-1 filing that there was also an "increase in labor-related technology costs of $47 million, resulting from an increase in compensation expenses and a lower amount of capitalized expenses year over year." The fintech says it employs ~1650 employees in technology and data science.
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