Usually, the higher the employee's position in the company, the larger the annual bonus he receives. If we are talking about only the 13th salary, then it is usually simply spent. Another thing is large payments. Agree, it is a shame to just spend a large sum on another Bentley convertible, instead of making this money bring additional profit. It seems that this is exactly what the top managers of many financial institutions think. For example, Gazprombank Executive Vice President Anatoly Milyukov invests his bonus entirely in shares.

Thanks to the bonus she received last year, Elena Kasyanova from Bank of Moscow made her dream come true: she bought “a certain apartment in a certain building.” True, to do this, she had to additionally sell shares and take out a mortgage loan. “I will spend next year’s bonus on early repayment of the loan and furnishing the apartment,” Kasyanova shares her plans for the future. Rosgosstrakh-Stolitsa CEO Oleg Merkulov also invested his bonus in building his “dream home.” Both this year’s and last year’s bonuses were invested there, he says. “Now my wife and I are waiting for next year’s bonus, because it’s time to build the walls and the roof,” Merkulov jokes.

Bonus time

The procedure for paying bonuses to employees is different in each company. For example, in the investment company Troika Dialog, the financial year ends on September 30, so employees receive bonuses just in time for winter. In the investment and construction corporation Barkley, the results of the year are summed up in

On the 20th of December, and bonuses are paid in the last days of December or at the beginning of January. But sometimes it takes longer to sum up the results – for example, at the Bank of Moscow the financial year ends on December 31, in February bonuses are accrued and paid in two parts – at the end of winter and in summer. But at Oracle the results of the year are summed up on May 31, and employees and top managers receive bonuses only in July. “Santa Claus doesn’t bring us any presents for the New Year,” jokes Boris Shcherbakov, CEO of Oracle’s CIS representative office.

The closer the end of the year, the more managers worry about whether they have managed to “catch up and surpass” key performance indicators, which most often determine the amount of money paid at the end of the year. And they are different for everyone. “Investment consultants receive additional bonuses for increasing sales volumes, portfolio managers - for better management results than competitors and in case of exceeding the stock index yield. And back office employees receive a percentage of the profit plan being exceeded,” reveals Mikhail Khabarov, CEO of Alfa Capital Management Company. Khabarov’s own bonus depends on the financial results of the company as a whole. “I receive an annual bonus for fulfilling the profit plan and attracting assets for management,” he admits. Andrey Uspensky, CEO of Pioglobal Asset Management Management Company, also receives a percentage of the company’s value growth. According to him, last year he received a bonus of 5% of the company’s value growth.

Make the bonus work

Management company executives often trust their employees with money. For example, Andrey Zhuykov, director of the management company Region Asset Management, invests half of his bonus in equity funds and the other half in real estate funds managed by his company. And Elena Kasyanova, CEO of the management company Bank of Moscow, has been placing bonus payments on the stock market for many years, in the last three years mainly through equity funds and an index fund managed by the management company Bank of Moscow.

But Dmitry Tarasov, director of the customer relations department at Capital Management Company, believes that the bonus is the same component of annual income as the salary, and it should be used in the same way. “I direct half of all income to investments, 25% to the needs of the family, and the remaining 25% to myself,” he admits.

If a top manager wants to invest his bonus rather than spend it, there are not many options: bank deposits, real estate or the stock market, says Shcherbakov from Oracle. It is noteworthy that top managers who work in the real estate sector also invest money in shares. “Personally, I invest a third of my bonus in the securities market, a third in square meters, and spend the remaining third on personal needs,” says Dmitry Shmelev, commercial director of the development company ST Group Region. He admits that since he does not understand anything about the securities market, he invests money not in shares of individual companies, but in mutual funds of shares.

Like other prepared investors, top managers of management companies often diversify their investments. For example, the CEO of Alliance Rosno Asset Management, Oleg Mazurov, spends only 15% of his bonus on current needs, and invests the rest in stock and bond funds in a 70/30 ratio. But Andrey Uspensky from Pioglobal Asset Management acts more cautiously. Previously, he invested his bonus in stock and bond funds approximately equally, but recently stock prices have risen too high. “I will invest next year’s bonus in fixed-income instruments: in bond funds or deposits. I survived the 1998 crisis and I understand that it is important not only to earn money, but also to save what you have earned,” Uspensky says.

Square meters

Many top managers admit that they use the money from their bonus to buy real estate. For example, Khabarov from Alfa Capital used his bonus to buy a house for his family in the Moscow region last year, and Dmitry Kashinsky, head of the customer service at the construction company Barkley, used his bonus from the year before last to buy an apartment. “I used the exchange option with an additional payment, but in principle the size of the annual bonus allows me to buy an apartment,” he explains.

When people talk about investing in real estate, they often simply mean improving their living conditions, says Sergey Litovchenko, executive director of the Association of Managers. He says that, as a rule, top managers do not invest in real estate, but improve their living conditions by buying more comfortable apartments. “I think that many people still buy real estate for resale. People are used to making money on real estate while it is growing,” disagrees Oleg Mazurov from Alliance Rosno Asset Management.

And many top managers honestly admit that they buy real estate for investment purposes. For example, this is what Shcherbakov from Oracle and Uspensky from Pioglobal Asset Management do. But Shcherbakov says that he buys real estate not to sell it in five or even 10 years, but for the long term. “Moscow real estate will always be in demand,” he reasons. But Uspensky invests not in housing, but in land. Last year, he used his bonus money to buy a plot of land in the Moscow region, in the Istra area. “I believe that investing in land is no less promising than investing in square meters. I am not going to build anything on this land,” Uspensky explains.

How to spend

However, not all top managers invest their bonus money. Many simply spend it. “I don’t invest and spend all the money I earn. And the annual bonus will simply allow me to spend more than usual. Maybe I’ll buy a good car,” says Dmitry Popovich, head of the Eset representative office in Russia. And Shmelev from ST Group Region, although he invests money, also cannot deny himself the pleasure of buying a new car. “I’ll buy a luxury convertible to please girls even more,” he says ironically. Only top managers of very large companies rack their brains over how to preserve and increase their wealth, while managers with more modest salaries prefer to spend, says Sergey Molozhavy, CEO of Technopromexport. “It’s no coincidence that new Bentleys are delivered to Moscow car dealerships in the spring,” he notes, not without irony.

Many top managers prefer to spend their bonuses on hobbies. For example, ROMIR monitoring president Andrey Milekhin said that he spends the dividends he receives from his business on travel. “I don’t know myself very well yet, I don’t know the world very well, in a word, I’m still underinvested in this area,” he jokes.

Deputy CEO for strategic planning at Raspadskaya Coal Company Aleksandr Andreyev recalls that he used part of the bonus he received this spring to buy several rare foreign silver coins for his collection. And Uspensky from Pioglobal Asset Management used part of his bonus from last year to buy several paintings by Soviet artists from the 1940s and 1950s. However, replenishing collections is not a bad way to invest.

Where bonuses are invested