TCS chief N Chandrasekaran gets a 14% salary hike

Annual salary of the chief executive was Rs 21.28 crore in FY15, up 14% from Rs 18.68 crore in previous year

It pays to be at the helm of India’s largest information technology (IT) services provider. Literally. N Chandrasekaran, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing  director of Tata Consultancy Services, received Rs 21.28 crore as total compensation in 2014-15, up 13.9 per cent from Rs 18.68 crore last year. This total remuneration for the financial year 2014-15 does not include dividends from 88,528 shares he owns in the company.

Chandrasekaran was also the highest salary receiver for FY15 when compared to CEOs of competing firms. His salary of Rs 21.28 crore (around $3.35 million) was higher than Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka’s $716,539 (around Rs 4.5 crore), T K Kurien, Wipro CEO’s annual salary of $1.5 million (around Rs 9.6 crore) and Cognizant’s Francisco D’Souza’s annual salary of $1.15 million (Rs 7.3 crore).

Chandrasekaran’s package consists of Rs 1.79 crore of salary, Rs 3.48 crore of benefits, perquisites and allowances and commission of Rs 16 crore. His stocks at a price of Rs 2,547 as on March 31, were worth Rs 22.58 crore.

If one takes into account the stock options of the CEOs, the ranking changes drastically. D’Souza of Cognizant’s total compensation hits a high of $9.65 million. This includes annual salary of $1.15 million and stock holding of 162,482 (as on June 5, 2017) worth about $8.5 million as of December 31, 2014, and $10.5 million at the current price of $64.6 per share.

Infosys’ Sikka, who was roped in with a salary of $5.08 million, has a base salary of $900,000 and a variable pay of $4.18 million. How much Sikka actually earns will be clear only towards the end of financial year 2015-16.

His FY15 salary was lower than some of the colleagues in the company as he joined only in July of 2014 and took over the helm in August.

But an important component of his salary is stock options of almost 54,134 (he received restricted stock options of 27,067, which went up due to stock split in December 2014). Sikka’s restricted stock options of 54,134, is worth Rs 12 crore as of March 31, 2015. TCS Chief Financial Officer Rajesh Gopinathan took home a package of Rs 2.14 crore in FY 2014-15.