Bonuses, stock options back for ICICI brass

The country's largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, has restored performance bonuses and stock options for its top executives for the year ended March 31, 2010.

In 2008-09, the bank's top executives had decided to forgo their bonus payouts and stock options.

"Our executive management went to the board and said it will not be proper for us to accept a bonus and stock options given the condition of the economy and given where we are as ICICI Bank," K Ramkumar, executive director had told Business Standard last year.

ICICI Bank refused to comment on the reasons for the move.

For senior management, stock options are a large part of the overall compensation package as compared to other components such as basic salary and performance bonus.

In 2009-10, ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar received a performance bonus of Rs 26.93 lakh (Rs 2.69 million) and 210,000 employee stock options, according to the bank's annual report.

Deputy managing director Sandeep Bakshi received a performance bonus of Rs 21.88 lakh (Rs 2.18 million) and 115,000 ESOPs.

Other top managers such as chief financial officer N S Kannan and K Ramkumar received a performance bonus of Rs 18.81 lakh (Rs 1.88 million) and 105,000 stock options each.

ICICI Bank's shares were at Rs 816.9 at close of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

ICICI Bank's balance sheet is in a better shape than it was a year ago.

The bank's net profit went up 35.20 per cent to Rs 1,005.57 crore (Rs 10.05 billion) during the fourth quarter of last financial year, as against Rs 743.76 crore during January-March 2009.

The bank's performance was boosted by an increase in non-interest income, lower operating expenses, lower provisions for non-performing assets and a strong show by its insurance, asset management and securities arms.

The banks has managed to put a lid on NPAs, with gross NPAs falling to Rs 9,480 crore (Rs 94.8 billion) at the end of 2009-10 compared to Rs 9,649 a year ago.

It also managed to improve its current  account-savings account ratio to 41.87 per cent from 28.7 per cent last year, albeit on a smaller deposit base.

After shrinking its loan book for the last couple of quarters, the bank has returned to the path of growth and expects to expand domestic loan assets by 20 per cent this year.