Surprisingly, the fattest pay package at the country's second-largest IT exporter does not go to its chief mentor and non-executive chairman N Narayana Murthy, Co-Chairman Nandan Nilekani or CEO and MD S Gopalakrishan.
Rather, it was head of European business and executive council member B G Srinivas, who was paid highest remuneration of Rs 4.67 crore (Rs 46.7 million) in the fiscal ended March 31, 2009.
The collective remuneration of all the board members and top management personnel rose by Rs 10.28 crore (Rs 102.8 million) to Rs 29.16 crore (Rs 291.6 million) in the fiscal 2008-09, as per the auditors' report to Infosys board on the consolidated financial statements of the company and its subsidiaries.
Srinivas was followed by Ashok Vemuri, who is based in the US and heads the company's BFSI and capital markets business, in terms of total remuneration. Vemuri's total compensation rose to Rs 4.04 crore (Rs 40.4 million) from Rs 2.81 crore (Rs 28.1 million) in the previous fiscal.
Srinivas' total remuneration rose by Rs 1.6 crore (Rs 16 million) from Rs 3.07 crore (Rs 30.7 million) in the previous fiscal, but he was second to CFO V Balakrishnan in terms of increase in the total payout. Balakrishnan's remuneration increased from Rs 63 lakh to Rs 2.36 crore (Rs 23.6 million) last fiscal.
In comparison, the hike was lowest at Rs 9 lakh for Nilekani as also Chief Operating Office S D Shibulal and whole time director K Dinesh, while that of Murthy rose by Rs 13 lakh during the year.
In terms of total remuneration, which includes salary, contribution to providend and other funds as well as perquisites and incentives, Srinivas and Vemuri were followed by director and HR head Mohan Das Pai (Rs 2.59 crore), CFO Balakrishnan (Rs 2.36 crore), Srinath Batni (Rs 1.87 crore), Chandra Shekar Kakal (Rs 1.58 crore) and Subhash B Dhar (Rs 1.27 crore).
The total payout was below Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) for each of Nilekani, Gopalakrishnan, Shibulal, Dinesh and all the independent directors, except for Sridar Iyengar who got Rs 1.02 crore (Rs 10.2 million).
Nilekani's package rose from Rs 82 lakh to Rs 92 lakh, Gopalakrishnan's from Rs 81 lakh to Rs 92 lakh and that of Murthy increased from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 63 lakh.
Earlier this month, Infosys said that it was freezing the wage hikes and fresh hirings for the current fiscal, although it would honour all the 18,000 campus offers made last year. Hit by global slowdown, the company has forecast first ever decline in its full-year revenue in its guidance for the current fiscal.
The company's staff cost is estimated to have increased to about Rs 95 lakh per employee from close to Rs 77 lakh about a year ago. The company's staff costs stood at Rs 2,999 crore (Rs 29.99 million) in the January-March period of 2009 when it had 1,04,850 employees, as against Rs 2,115 crore (Rs 21.15 billion) in the year-ago period when it had 91,187 employees.
After releasing the fourth quarter results, Pai had said that the board members have taken a steep cut and received only 58 per cent of the variable pay for the past fiscal.
Senior employees got 65-75 per cent of the variable component for the year, while junior employees received about 85 per cent of the variable pay, he added.
