BackInfosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s annual salary drops due to lower bonus payout
According to Infosys annual report , the cash component of Vishal Sikka's salary was Rs16.01 crore, down from Rs48.73 crore in 2015-16
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New Delhi: Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka’s high salary, which had prompted the founder members to voice concerns, has dropped over 67% in 2016-17 due to a lower bonus payout.
According to the annual report of Infosys, the cash component of Sikka’s salary was Rs16.01 crore, down from Rs48.73 crore in 2015-16.
His total compensation, including bonus and grant of stocks, fell 7% to Rs45.11 crore in 2016-17 from Rs48.41 crore in the previous fiscal.
Sikka received a base salary of $1 million in fiscal 2017, up from $900,000 in previous year.
His bonus and incentives dropped to $0.82 million ($4.36 million in fiscal 2016) as against the target of $3 million. He also received restricted stock units worth $2 million, same as the previous year, and performance based stock incentives of $2.88 million (nil last year).
The remuneration of Sikka for last fiscal remains 283.07 times higher than the median remuneration of employees (MRE) of Infosys.
The MRE of Infosys for FY17 stood at Rs5,65,585. According to the annual report, while the total compensation of Sikka has fallen other senior executives witnessed a rise.
Chief operating officer U B Pravin Rao’s total salary increased to Rs11.80 crore in FY17 from Rs8.14 crore in the previous year. Likewise, compensation of deputy chief operating officer, Ravi Kumar S, went up to Rs14.87 crore from Rs8.27 crore.
Last month, Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, who had previously questioned the principles on which the Board was paying a high salary to Sikka, had expressed anger over the steep hike in compensation to COO Rao.
Also, presidents Mohit Joshi, Sandeep Dadlani and Rajesh Murthy received total compensation of over Rs14 crore. Joshi got Rs14.62 crore in 2016-17, up from Rs9.02 crore in the previous year, Dadlani got Rs14.97 crore as against Rs8.4 crore in the previous year and Murthy got Rs14.25 crore as compared to Rs8.55 crore.
Hike was mainly because of increased performance-based stock incentives. In the letter to shareholders, Sikka said the best and most talented employees want to be measured on performance - not role maturity or tenure. So in fiscal 2017, stock incentives plan for top performers was introduced.
“It has been my personal endeavour since joining Infosys to enable all employees to share in the successes of the company, and in fiscal 2017, we made the first step of this a reality.
“In addition, we restructured the compensation of senior leaders to be more performance-based, with a significant portion of their compensation now coming through stock incentives, creating a more direct alignment with the interest shareholders," he wrote.
Non-executive chairman R Seshasayee got Rs1.95 crore in remuneration in 2016-17 as compared to Rs1.84 crore in the previous year. Other independent directors too got a remuneration of over Rs1 crore.
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