Staff at Airbnb Irish unit get $55.46m in share-based pay

Staff at an Irish unit of Airbnb last year enjoyed a pay bonanza following a share-based payment of $55.46 million (€48.94 million).

According to accounts lodged with the Companies Office, staff at Airbnb Ireland last year shared total pay of $98.6 million. That comprised salary of $43.14 million and share-based payments of $55.46 million, equating to average pay of about $200,000 (€177,000) per employee for the year. Employee numbers fell from 498 to 444 over the course of the year.

The share-based payments contributed to overall remuneration, more than doubling last year from $39.36 million in 2019.

Airbnb has its headquarters for its Europe, the Middle East and Africa operations in Dublin. The large hikes in pay for customer support, administration and marketing staff at Airbnb Ireland came even as revenues plunged 38 per cent, or by $1.1 billion, to $1.79 billion.

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The Dublin-based company operates the online marketplace for Airbnb outside the US, China and a portion of Japan.

The accounts noted that in early 2020, as Covid-19 disrupted travel around the world, Airbnb’s business declined significantly. “But within a couple of months, the business model started to rebound even with limited international travel,” the accounts said.

“Notwithstanding this rebound, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to materially and adversely impact our turnover and financial results for 2021.”

Numbers

The firm recorded a pre-tax loss of $3 billion. This arose mainly from a non-cash writedown of $2.57 billion related to intellectual property. The losses also take account of combined non-cash amortisation and depreciation costs of $422 million.

Airbnb Ireland sold its intellectual property rights in relation to the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions during the year to its parent, Airbnb Global Holdings, for $3.6 billion.

The directors state that following the sale and distribution of the intellectual property during the year, the company transitioned to a limited risk distributor model and is remunerated accordingly.

Directors’ pay last year increased almost threefold to $2.6 million, including pay of $622,000, benefits under a long-term incentive scheme of $1.98 million and pension contributions of $16,000.