Tata Chairman N Chandrasekaran's compensation up 15% at ₹156 crore in FY25

N Chandrasekaran, executive chairman of Tata Sons — the holding company of the steel-to-software business group — received a total compensation of ₹155.81 crore in FY25, which made him one of the highest-paid corporate leaders in India. His compensation rose 15 per cent over the previous year. 

During FY25, Tata Sons’ profit fell 24.3 per cent to ₹26,232 crore from ₹34,654 crore the previous year, according to the company’s annual report. 

The remuneration of Chandrasekaran, widely known as Chandra, included ₹15.1 crore as salary and other compensation, and ₹140.7 crore as commission on profit for the financial year ended March 2025. The commission on profits amounted to 0.6 per cent of the FY25 net profit — a rise from 0.4 per cent of net profit in FY24. 

The remuneration of Saurabh Agrawal, executive director of Tata Sons, increased by 7.7 per cent to ₹32.7 crore in FY25. This included salary and commission on profit. The commission on profit for the rest of the board was up 6.7 per cent, the report said. 

Noel Tata, who joined the Tata Sons board as a director on October 22 last year after the death of group patriarch Ratan Tata, received a commission on profit of ₹1.42 crore. Leo Puri, who retired from the board in March this year, received ₹3.13 crore, while Bhaskar Bhat received a commission on profit of ₹1.33 crore after retiring in August last year. Venu Srinivasan, one of the three directors representing the Tata trusts, has abstained from receiving commissions since his appointment. 

Tata Sons declined to comment.

 

For FY25, Tata Sons reported a total revenue of ₹38,834.58 crore, against the previous year’s ₹43,893.00 crore, which had included ₹9,375.66 crore from the sale of investments. The profit before tax stood at ₹35,440.76 crore in FY25, compared with ₹39,813.16 crore the previous year.

 

The company’s total expenses dropped to ₹1,945.64 crore in FY25 from ₹2,776.49 crore a year earlier. It had repaid all its borrowings during FY24, ending the financial year with a net cash position of ₹2,679.19 crore; this rose to ₹7,117.43 crore in FY25. 

Return on equity for the year stood at 19.11 per cent, compared with 32.2 per cent in FY24. The carrying cost of investments rose to ₹1,69,826.56 crore as on March 31, 2025, against ₹1,44,711.20 crore a year earlier. 

The company also disclosed that it had applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in FY24 to voluntarily surrender its certificate of registration as a core investment company (CIC) and continue as an unregistered CIC. The application remains under examination by the regulator. Tata Sons had repaid all its bank debt in FY24 in order to get itself declassified as a non-banking financial services-upper layer (NBFC-UL) and avoid a listing, which the RBI has mandated for such entities. 

Based on the company’s performance, the board raised the dividend to ₹64,900 per share for FY25, up from ₹35,000 a share the previous year — a payout ratio of 6,490 per cent, compared to 3,500 per cent in FY24. 

This will result in a total cash outflow of ₹2,622.91 crore to its shareholders. Tata Trusts hold a 66 per cent stake in Tata Sons, while the Shapoorji Pallonji group owns 18.4 per cent. Noel Tata, the chairman of Tata Trusts, is related to the Shapoorji Pallonji group through his marriage to Aloo Mistry.