Dive Brief:
- 7-Eleven CEO Joseph DePinto’s total compensation for fiscal 2024 fell by 43% compared to the previous year, according to parent company Seven & i Holding’s annual securities report filed earlier this month.
- DePinto, 7-Eleven’s CEO since 2005, earned 4.35 billion yen, or about $29.6 million, in fiscal 2024 — a notable drop from the $52 million he earned in fiscal 2023, according to Seven & i’s last two annual securities reports. This drop came even as DePinto’s salary, which Seven & i calls “fixed compensation,” rose by about $200,000 year over year.
- Over 90% of DePinto’s annual earnings result from performance-based incentives “in order to encourage the achievement of performance targets,” Seven & i said in its securities reports.
Dive Insight:
Seven & i did not specify what the performance-based incentives for DePinto are, nor why his performance-based earnings were so much lower than in fiscal 2023. However, when he earned over $50 million in 2023, DePinto received various “long-term incentives” related to 7-Eleven’s acquisition of 3,800 Speedway c-stores in 2021, according to Seven & i’s securities report.
DePinto was one of several c-store CEOs whose annual earnings dropped in 2024 due to increasingly difficult operating conditions. 7-Eleven, which runs more than 9,300 convenience stores across 41 states, endured significant financial setbacks last year as it faced mounting economic challenges brought on by inflation. The retailer’s same-store sales fell 2.7% in fiscal 2024 and are expected to contract by another 1.5% in fiscal 2025.
On top of that, 7-Eleven faced frequent organizational disruption during the year, including a takeover attempt by Alimentation Couche-Tard initiated last summer.. Couche-Tard’s bid became the biggest storyline in convenience retailing until the megadeal flopped this month.
In the middle of dealing with that buyout offer, Seven & i named a new CEO and announced its plans to spin off 7-Eleven into its own company through an initial public offering in the second half of 2026. Days later, DePinto resigned from Seven & i’s board of directors for undisclosed reasons. There’s been no indication that DePinto will step back from his leadership role with 7-Eleven as the company prepares for its IPO.
Despite the decrease from 2023, Depinto’s 4.35 billion yen earned last year still outpaced his 2022 earnings of 3.78 billion yen, or about $25.3 million, according to Seven & i’s securities report from that year.
