JULY 25, 2022
IT giant HCL Technologies Ltd provided a remuneration of Rs 123.13 crore ($16.52 million) to its chief executive officer C. Vijayakumar last year, the company said in its annual report released over the weekend. This makes the Vijayakumar the highest-paid Indian CEO among the country’s software companies. HCL Tech revealed that three-fourth of Vijayakumar’s income included those in long-term benefits.
“Mr. C. Vijayakumar did not receive any remuneration from the Company, however he received remuneration [Including Long-term Incentive (“LTI”)] of USD 16.52 million (equivalent Rs 123.13 crores) from HCL America Inc., a step-down wholly owned subsidiary of the Company,” the company said in the annual report released Friday.
Vijayakumar took an annual base salary at $2 million, while he got another $2 million in variable pay. The CEO further got 0.02 million as perquisites and other benefits for the year ended 31 March. The LTI of $12.50 million took his total salary to $16.52 million, Noida-based HCL Tech said in the annual report.
The software giant further said in its report that Vijayakumar’s salary of $4.13 million during the year ended March 2021 did not comprise the LTI.
“There has been no change in his remuneration during the FY 2021-22 except for receipt of USD 12.5 million as LTI (Long-Term incentive) that is paid at fixed intervals (at the end of two years) based on the achievement of milestones / parameters fixed by the Board,” noted the annual report. “Accordingly, the payment of above LTI is for two years that ended on March 31, 2021 viz. USD 6.25 million for FY 2019-20 and USD 6.25 million for the FY 2020-21, it said further”.
If the LTI is excluded from Vijayakumar’s remuneration for the year ended March 2020, his compensation of $10.27 million would be slightly less than that of industry peer Wipro Ltd’s CEO Thierry Delaporte, who earned $10.5 million. Wipro paid the highest salary to its top boss, while reporting the highest revenue growth among IT companies with a $10.3 billion revenue. In FY21, the Wipro CEO had beaten his peers in terms of salary in the IT industry when he took over the charges at the Indian IT major in July 2020.
On the other hand, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh got a 43 per cent hike in his total compensation to $10.2 million per annum in 2021-22, as the company posted a revenue of over $16 billion last year. Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) paid a compensation of $3.3 million to its chief executive Rajesh Gopinathan even as the company saw its revenue jump to $25.7 billion.
As per a Deloitte India survey published last month, the CEO compensation has now exceeded the pre-pandemic levels and that was the first survey where the average CEO total compensation has crossed the Rs 10-crore mark.
The increase in pay levels is accompanied by a strong performance linkage 51 per cent of pay for CEO is “at risk” or variable, according to the 2022 Deloitte India Executive Remuneration Survey.
