Pay hike row: Only 24% of promoters favour Pravin Rao, says Infosys

Only 24.1% of promoters and promoter group entities voted in favour of a pay hike to Chief Operating Officer U.B. Pravin Rao, Infosys Ltd said in an exchange filing, citing results of a postal ballot held on Friday. The proposed compensation package includes a fixed pay of Rs 46.2 million and a variable component of 38.8 mln rupees per annum. Rao will also receive 27,250 restricted stock units and 43,000 stock options vested over four years.

Rao is also the wholetime director on the Infosys' board, reports Cogencis. The proposal came under fire from cofounder N.R. Narayana Murthy Sunday. In a letter, the full text of which was published by the Business Standard, Murthy said, "...Giving nearly 60% to 70% increase in compensation for a top level person (even including performance-based variable pay) when the compensation for most of the employees in the company was increased by just 6% to 8% is, in my opinion, not proper."

In February, too, Murthy had said there was a drop in governance standards at the company. He had also criticised the huge severance pay to former chief financial officer Rajiv Bansal. "Providing huge severance pay (with 100% variable) to some departing employees while giving only 80% variable for employees in the company is one such example," Murthy had then said. "Such payments raise doubts whether the company is using such payments as hush money to hide something."