Mutual fund CEOs draw hefty pay in FY17; loss-making MFs too take fat salaries

AMCs had to make salary disclosures by April 30. Top mutual funds-- ICICI Prudential, HDFC and Reliance MFs have made clear disclosures in this regard for the 2016-17 fiscal.

While few fund houses are asking for investors to provide folio number, registered email id name and mobile number for accessing the remuneration details, others are informing those trying to access the salary information that the details would be sent to them directly in a day or two.

Going by the details disclosed by fund houses so far, the salaries of chief executive officers of ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund and Reliance Mutual Fund have increased in the last fiscal year.

The salaries of most chief investment officers have also increased last year. But interestingly, few smaller fund houses paid  higher salaries than their larger counterparts, despite making losses or marginal profit.

Data infographic by Ritesh Presswala

In FY17, HDFC Mutual Fund paid its CEO Milind Barve a salary of Rs 6.49 crore, compared to a package of Rs 6.25 crore a year ago. On the other hand, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund paid Rs 5.96 crore to its managing director Nimesh Shah in FY17, compared to Rs 5.4 crore in the previous financial year.

Reliance Mutual Fund’s CEO, Sundeep Sikka got a pay package of Rs 5.01 crore, as against his package of Rs 3.25 crore in 2015-16.

A Balasubramanian, chief executive at Birla SunLife MF, received a salary of Rs 4.11 crore, up from Rs 3.73 crore in FY16.

Fifth largest fund house, SBI Mutual Fund had appointed Anuradha Rao as its managing director and CEO in August 2016 and therefore the figure is not comparable.

In terms of assets under management, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund is the largest fund house with an assets base of Rs 2.43 lakh crore, followed by HDFC MF at Rs 2.37 lakh crore, Reliance MF at Rs 2.11 lakh crore, Birla Sunlife MF at Rs 1.95 lakh crore and SBI MF at Rs 1.57 lakh crore.

Last month, the capital market regulator had asked fund houses to disclose the remuneration of CEOs, CIOs, operating officers, sales head and other officials earning over Rs 1.02 crore per annum and above. Last year, this limit was Rs 60 lakh and above.

SEBI has asked fund houses to disclose the remuneration of top 10 employees on their website under a separate head: ‘remuneration’.

SEBI has beein  promoting transparency in remuneration policies so that executive salary is aligned with the interest of investors.

Only few mutual fund houses have complied with the regulator’s directive and disclosed the salary information, most others are yet to comply.