Anil Ambani tops the list of highest salary-earners

The best paid individuals in the country are promoters of their respective companies, says a survey by SundayET. The list of
Salary highest salary-earners is led by Anil Ambani, the head of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, who draws a salary of over Rs 30 crore per annum. Flanking the junior Ambani at the top are Malvinder Mohan Singh of Ranbaxy who later sold the company to Daiichi and chairman of telecom giant Bharti Airtel, Sunil Bharti Mittal.

According to a SundayET analysis of the salaries in top 100 Indian companies in terms of m-cap, Torrent Power’s Markand Bhatt and joint managing director of pharma major Cipla, Amar Lulla, who occupy the fourth and fifth rungs on the ladder respectively — and are not promoters of their companies — are the exceptions to the rule. Reliance Ind Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani’s name does not figure in list as the financial results of the company have not been announced yet.

The analysis has been done on the basis of data available with the CMIE Database so far, which is only for those companies which have declared salaries of their key decision makers. The total remuneration package, which has been taken into consideration, includes the entire gamut of salary, fees for board meetings attended, sitting fees, bonuses and commission, perquisites, retiral benefits and contribution to provident fund.

Explaining the reasons behind the presence of a few independent professionals on the list, Cherian Kuruvila, director of operations at employment service provider, Manpower, says that compensation structures of the professionals in the management team are generally such that they include a fairly large component of employee stock option plans (ESOPs), whose high valuations, could mean a big gain for these individuals. The large pay package of some of the top honchos has also been seen as indications of future investments or simply because tax laws have become more favourable.

Malvinder Singh, who ranked second on the list saw his salary pegged at Rs 24 crore in FY 08, a 21% hike over his salary in the previous year.

Even telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal received a salary of around Rs 23 cr during FY09, which is about 17% higher than his salary in the previous financial year. However, it was Markhand Bhatt of Torrent Power who reaped a bumper hike in a year marked by the slowdown and salary rollbacks. His remuneration went up by more than 200% to Rs 15 cr during FY09.

Both Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan, executive chairman of Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) as well as the MD of HDIL, Sarang Wadhawan are other promoters who occupy sixth and tenth positions on the list. Cipla’s CMD, Dr Y K Hamied and the joint MD, M K Hamied, have bagged the seventh and eighth positions. The vice chairman and MD of JSW Steel, Sajjan Jindal found himself in the ninth place