Ex-TV scribe, legal hawk part of panel which fixes Siddhartha Lal's pay

Eicher's Lal earns 300 times more than median for an Eicher employee

One of India’s most valuable stocks on the bourses is facing the heat from its own shareholders. Stock exchange filings show that 27 per cent of institutional shareholders rejected the proposal to re-appoint Siddhartha Lal as managing director of Eicher. The company, which manufactures the Enfield brand of motorcycles and is known for its iconic Bullet range of bikes, had hiked Lal’s compensation to Rs 21.2 crore per annum. That’s a jump of 130 per cent of what the scion of the family that owns Eicher earned in 2016-17. The proposal, now nixed by shareholders, was to increase Lal's compensation to Rs 23.23 crore for the current financial year. Here is a look at what the core of Eicher’s board looks like.

1) Siddhartha Lal: The man in the eye of the storm, Lal is son of Vikram Lal, the founder of Eicher. Lal’s salary, at Rs 21.2 crore, is one of the highest among all MDs and CEOs in the automobile industry and just behind Rajiv Bajaj. Both Bajaj and Lal are promoters of their respective companies. Lal’s compensation is 300 times more than the median remuneration of employees at his company. In 2020-21, his salary rose 10 per cent as compared to the last year. Meanwhile the median remuneration of employees at Eicher rose by one per cent in 2020-21. Lal’s compensation has three components – Rs 7.38 crore as salary, Rs 6.70 crore as commission and Rs 7.04 crore as perquisites. He was appointed as the MD in June 2015 for a five-year tenure. If he fails to get re-appointed, he will have to serve a three-month notice period or forgo Rs 5.3 crore from his compensation to make an early exit. Lal spends considerable time in the UK where the research and development facilities of Enfield are located.

2) Vinod Dasari: Though he resigned a week before the current fracas at Enfield, Dasari was the highest paid employee at Eicher; earning much more than Lal. In fact Dasari’s salary was 400 times the median salary of an average employee. Dasari received Rs 25.37 crore as compensation in his role as whole time director and CEO of Royal Enfield. Unlike Lal, Dasari wasn’t entitled to any commission and barely Rs 3 lakh as perquisites. Much of his compensation was credited directly to his bank account as salary. He quit Royal Enfield and Eicher much before his term ended. In 2019, the company’s shareholders had approved his appointment as whole time director till March 30, 2024.  While Lal was given an increment of over 10 per cent in 2020-21, Dasari got a hike of 2 per cent.

Srinivasan Sandilya, Chairman, Eicher Group

3) Srinivasan Sandilya: One of the oldest hands at Eicher and one of the few men from Vikram Lal's days still on Eicher’s board, Sandilya has seen Eicher’s transition into a name to reckon with today. Formerly with Union Carbide and DCM, Sandilya joined Eicher 46 years ago. Appointed as the group chairman and CEO in 2000, Sandiya retired at Eicher a few years ago but was retained as an independent director in the company. Sandilya got almost Rs 70 lakh as sitting fees and commission from Eicher to attend its various board meetings during the year. He is one of the members of the remuneration committee that fixed Lal's revised enhanced compensation.

Manvi Sinha, Independent director, Eicher Motors

4) Manvi Sinha: Another independent director at Eicher, Sinha was a television journalist at NDTV before being chosen to be on the board of Eicher. She was appointed on the board in 2015 for a period of five years. Her stint was extended in 2019. She was hired by Eicher as an independent director when she was a consulting editor for the television division of the Times of India group. Sinha, like Lal, also went to school in Dehradun. While Lal was from Doon school, Sinha was from Welham Girls. Sinha received Rs 5.3 lakh to attend meetings of Eicher’s board and another Rs 12 lakh as commission for doing the same in 2020-21. Sinha’s compensation increased 7 per cent in 2020-21 as compared to last year.

Inder Mohan Singh, Independent director, Eicher Motors

5)Inder Mohan Singh: The legal hawk of Eicher, Singh is another independent director on the board of Eicher. Singh worked at Eicher before joining Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co as a partner. Like Sinha, he is part of Eicher’s CSR and audit committee. He took home a compensation similar to Sinha for attending board meetings. However his compensation was hiked to twice more than Sinha's in 2020-21. He, Sinha and Sandilya were part of the remuneration committee that decided to hike Lal’s compensation. According to the company’s policy, this committee took the decision after getting inputs from other directors on Lal’s “thought contribution, business insights and applied knowledge.”

Vinod Aggarwal, non-executive director, Eicher Motors

6)Vinod Aggarwal: He steers Eicher’s partnership with Volvo in the commercial vehicle space and serves as a non-independent director on Eicher’s board. Aggarwal holds 37,000 shares in Eicher, just a fraction of the company’s shareholding. However, being a non-independent director, he does not receive either a salary or any commission for attending the board’s meetings. Again one of the oldest hands at Eicher, Aggarwal, a graduate from Panjab University, joined Eicher in 1983 in the lower management before rising up the ranks to his present position in Eicher-Volvo’s joint venture.

The other member of the seven person-strong board is Executive Director B Govindarajan who joined Eicher as a junior manager in 1995.