Salaries increase for top mutual fund CEOs on robust business growth

CEO salaries increased at the country’s top mutual fund houses during 2019-20 on robust business growth, with HDFC Mutual Fund's Milind Barve being the highest paid executive.

According to an analysis of the data made public by mutual funds, the CEO salary given by the top 12 fund houses in terms of assets under management increased in the range of 2-132 per cent in 2019-20 from the preceding fiscal year. However, CEO remuneration of Aditya Birla Sunlife MF, Nippon India MF and DSP MF dropped by up to 19 per cent during the period under review.

The salaries for chief investment officers also witnessed a rise for most fund houses.

Salary disclosed by the fund houses for 2019-20 was decided in April-May 2019 on the basis of 2018-19 profitability, which was at an all-time high for the industry, according to industry executives. Overall, the past fiscal was a good year for the mutual fund industry barring the month of March, which saw record declines amid the coronavirus pandemic. Barve, chief executive of second-largest fund house HDFC MF, claimed the top slot with a salary pay-out of Rs 7.43 crore for the fiscal. His package climbed by 3 per cent from Rs 7.23 crore in 2018-19. In terms of percentage growth, SBI MF, which is the largest fund house in the country in terms of AUM, gave its CEO Ashwani Bhatia a salary jump of 132 per cent to Rs 51 lakh in 2019-20. He had earned a salary of Rs 22 lakh in the preceding fiscal. Ironically, Bhatia is the lowest paid CEO among the top fund houses.

Apart from SBI MF, fund houses like UTI MF and Kotak MF too gave a staggering salary hike to their respective CEOs.

Barve is followed by Nilesh Shah, the top honcho of Kotak MF, who received a pay package of Rs 7.32 crore, 68 per cent higher than Rs 4.35 crore received in the preceding fiscal. ICICI Prudential MF paid Rs 6.98 crore to its MD Nimesh Shah last fiscal, a hike of 12 per cent from Rs 6.25 crore in 2018-19.
 

Nippon India MF’s CEO Sundeep Sikka got a salary of Rs 6.01 crore, which is a decline of 8 per cent from last fiscal.