Robust business helps MF CEOs bag salary hike
Even small, loss-making firms pay well to retain their top executives, shows data
New Delhi, May 1: CEO salaries have gone up at the country’s biggest mutual funds on robust business growth, but several smaller players making losses or little profit have also paid crores to their top executives.
The disclosure follows a diktat from markets regulator Sebi to all fund houses to make public the salaries of their top managements so that investors are aware of the payouts.
While top fund houses like ICICI Prudential, HDFC and Reliance MFs have made clear disclosures in this regard by the Sebi deadline of April 30 for the 2016-17 fiscal, some others appear to have made it difficult for the investors to directly access the information.
Some of them are also asking investors to provide details like folio numbers before sharing the information, while a few others are informing those trying to access the salary information that the details would be sent to them directly in a day or two.
Moreover, some fund houses have enforced OTP (one-time password)/email mechanism to share the remuneration data making it inconvenient for investors to access these information.
According to an analysis of the data made public so far by the fund houses, the CEO salary given by the top four fund houses — ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC MF, Reliance MF and Birla SunLife MF — increased in 2016-17.
Birla Sunlife MF, which is the fifth biggest domestic fund, had appointed Anuradha Rao as its MD and CEO in August 2016 and therefore the figure is not comparable.
The salaries for Chief Investment Officers have also increased for most of them.
Surprisingly, some smaller fund houses have paid higher salaries than their bigger rivals, despite making losses or marginal profit.
Among the top players, HDFC Mutual Fund paid its CEO Milind Barve a salary of `6.49 crore for the latest fiscal 2016-17.
He had received a package of `6.25 crore in the preceding fiscal.
ICICI Prudential MF paid `5.96 crore to its managing director Nimesh Shah last fiscal, as compared to `5.4 crore in the preceding financial year.
Further, Sundeep Sikka, the top honcho of Reliance MF, received a pay package of `5.01 crore. He had earned a salary of `3.25 crore in 2015-16.