It pays to be a Ferrari employee – record bonus payout!

Italian sportscar manufacturer Ferrari has announced that its production bonus for employees for 2013 will amount to 4,096 euro (Rs 3.39 lakh), the highest ever awarded in the company’s history.

The production bonus is in recognition of the excellent financial results achieved last year, not least of which were record profits, in addition to other parameters, such as levels of quality.

This bonus, the result of an agreement signed with the unions in 2012, is linked to a grid of operational values with the objective of sharing the company’s success. Last year, as well as the production bonus, an additional three-yearly bonus was paid out and chairman Luca di Montezemolo has announced its extension for a further three years.

In 2013 Ferrari adopted a strategy to reduce production to under 7,000 cars a year to preserve their exclusivity and value over time, and this strategy will continue this year and into 2015. Despite this production cut of about 4 percent, the company’s brand value has risen 12 percent to US$4 billion/Rs 24,108 crore.

Year 2013 revenues increased by 5 percent and trading profits rose by 8.3 percent. These, says Ferrari, are record figures, as is the net financial position which, at the end of 2013, stood at an all-time high.

Ferrari’s financial firepower can be seen in its spend of around 14.4 percent of its turnover – £268 million / Rs 2,746 crore in 2012 – on R&D.

Ferrari is preparing to spend £1.23 billion (Rs 12,312 crore) over the next five years on R&D, 70 percent of which will be spent on “efficiency gains” — which is expected to mean further innovations in lightweight structures and downsized turbocharged engines. To back all this up, the company has a remarkable £1.12 billion (Rs 11,211 crore) in cash reserves.

Earlier this year, Ferrari was, once again, voted as the world's most powerful brand in the 2014 Brand Finance Global 500. The carmaker scores highly on a wide variety of measures on Brand Finance’s Brand Strength Index, from desirability, loyalty and consumer sentiment to visual identity, online presence and employee satisfaction.