CEOs and all the executives responsible for raising the revenues of their respective deserve to take home fat pay checks, according to Glencore chief executive Ivan Glasenberg.

Mr Glasenberg said on Thursday in London that the $270 million retention payments reserved for Xstrata ranking managers over the next three years were wholly justified.

The huge executive windfall is part of the $31 billion merger deal between Glencore, which mainly function as a commodities trader, and Swiss miner Xstrata.

As far as the Glencore chief is concerned, investors from both camps need to fork out the appropriate cash for corporate executives that deliver the goods.

"If you want good CEOs, you are going to have to pay," Mr Glasenberg was reported by Reuters as saying yesterday in defending the need to appreciate the entrepreneurial skills that Xstrata executives have displayed so far.

The evidence is all in the books as Xstrata sustained its run of excellent results in the past years under the leadership of its present CEO, Mick Davis.

With Mr Davis at the helm, Xstrata's Australian operations, according to The Herald Sun, shipped out some 75 million tonnes of coal and currently maintains huge coal production facilities in the American regions and South Africa.

In short, Mr Davis, who will receive $45 million in the next three years in carrying over his CEO position to a merged Glencore-Xstrata entity, and his team deserve the payment, Mr Glasenberg said amidst the spirited protests aired recently by his firm's institutional shareholders.

""I've got to accept it," the Glencore chief said, as reported by Bloomberg adding that despite owning the biggest shares in the company, at 16 percent, he may not have the sufficient clout to reverse such controversial part of the deal with Xstrata.

Besides, Mr Glasenberg added, "if I were the CEO and my shareholders voted down my salary, my compensation, because they did not believe I was worth it, then you have to leave."

He hinted that the hundred of millions in executive compensation were small price to pay in ensuring that Glencore and Xstrata will "keep these gentlemen in the job, to make sure they are there for the good integration of the companies."

He also appealed on his fellow Glencore investors, which collectively already own 36.5 percent shares in Xstrata, to arrive at a realisation that Mr Davis has been performing quite well.

"(We should) be happy to pay him well, because he is giving us great returns," Reuters reported Mr Glasenberg as saying.

Glencore and Xstrata shareholders are scheduled to vote on the blockbuster marriage in July, which analysts said should muster enough support from both camps despite the emergence of contending issues in the run up to the formal union.