PhonePe founders together drew Rs 5 crore salary in FY24, value of ESOPs drops 75%

PhonePe founders Sameer Nigam (R) and Rahul Chari.

PhonePe founders Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari together drew a salary of Rs 5 crore in FY24, down from Rs 7 crore in the previous year, the digital payments company’s annual report shows.

The figure includes salary and other benefits but does not include gratuity. Nigam and Chari are listed as key management personnel (KMP) along with other board members.

The salary, however, is a small part of their compensation packages, with the value of share-based payments or Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) for FY24 at Rs 226 crore. The value of ESOPs dropped 75 percent from Rs 917 crore that the duo received in FY23, the report, which was released on October 21, shows.

According to a source, this is mostly because of PhonePe valuation rising from $5 billion to $12 billion in a fund raise in FY 23, which helped the founders take home a much higher share based payments value.

The number of shares allotted to the founders, however, did not change much between FY23 and FY24

The board members and other directors have received sitting fees but that is not part of the compensation package of the KMP mentioned in the annual report.

In FY24, the Bengaluru-based company reported a 73 percent year-on-year increase in revenue at Rs 5,064 crore on the back of cost efficiency and product diversification.

PhonePe Group recorded adjusted Profit After Tax (PAT) of Rs 197 crore, against a loss of Rs 738 crore in the previous year.

The company’s performance has been dragged down by its subsidiaries, some of which scaled only in FY24.

PhonePe is a market leader with 50 percent share of UPI payments. The company processes around 7 billion transactions worth around Rs 10 lakh crore in a month.

The payments company is majority owned by US retail giant Walmart and shifted its registered office from Singapore to India in the last financial year after paying more than a billion dollars in tax.