Infosys has revised CEO Salil Parekh’s remuneration upwards by 88 per cent for this fiscal, making him one of the highest paid executives in India. The sharp jump follows his reappointment for a period of five years beginning July 1.
The company will seek shareholders’ approval for the revised remuneration at its AGM on June 25. The tech giant justified the hike citing industry leading growth in recent years. Parekh took charge at Infosys from January 2, 2018.
Parekh’s renumeration will rise to Rs 79.75 crore from Rs 42.50 crore: the fixed compensation will be Rs 11 crore against Rs 9.75 crore. The rest is performance-based remuneration: of this, Rs 17 crore will be variable cash compensation based on certain operating metrics and the rest performance equity grants.
The fat hike could increase the gap between the salary of the CEO and Infosys’ employees. In 2021-22, the ratio of median remuneration of the CEO to employees was 229 (excluding stock-based compensation) and 872 (including stock-based compensation).
Infosys said in its annual report that the nomination & remuneration committee has recommended a revised compensation structure considering that Parekh is not a first-time CEO and MD.
According to the committee, he is the CEO of a globally listed entity and has demonstrated successful business and overall performance since his appointment. “The company competes with global peers, particularly in North America and Europe, with almost 87 per cent of the revenue coming from these geographies, and therefore, Salil’s remuneration has to be determined keeping in view international benchmarks. ”
“Salil’s proposed total target remuneration vis-à-vis the remuneration most recently paid to CEOs of the peers (based on publicly available information as analysed by the Company’s external advisors Egon Zehnder) would be around the median,’’ Infosys said.
TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan's annual salary stands at Rs 25.76 crore, while Wipro's Paris-based CEO has a pay of Rs 64.34 crore. HCL Tech CEO has a package of Rs 32.21 crore while Tech Mahindra CEO earns Rs 22 crore.
