Rajiv Bajaj's salary rises 14% to Rs 32.31 crore in FY19

Following record profits last year Bajaj Auto’s Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj saw a 14 percent rise in pay during FY19 as the company regained some of its lost market shares.

Rajiv (52), who is one of the highest paid employees in corporate India, took home Rs 32.31 crore in remuneration during FY19, according to details shared by the company in the annual report. His pay hike was in line with the rise in Bajaj Auto’s profits last year. Rajiv’s package in FY18 stood at Rs 28.32 crore.

Rajiv has now gone past Ralf Speth, the CEO of Tata Motors-controlled Jaguar Land Rover, who saw a massive 21 percent contraction in remuneration to Rs 31.82 crore last year. Speth, however, continued to be the highest paid executive from the non-promoter group in the automotive sector.

Rajiv's father and Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj saw a dip of 1.3 percent in remuneration to Rs 11.42 crore during FY19 as against Rs 11.58 crore paid during FY18.

Bajaj Auto outperformed the two and three wheeler industry last year on the back of new launches and an effective pricing game. The company slashed the prices of the CT100 and Pulsar and launched new variants of the Avenger, Platina, Dominar and the KTM range.

The Pune-based company closed last year with a profit of Rs 4,675 crore, a 14.9 percent rise compared to Rs 4,068 crore posted in FY18. Revenues grew 18.8 percent to Rs 31,805 crore as against Rs 26,776 crore recorded in FY18.

The steepest jump in pay packages was for Pradeep Shrivastava, Executive Director of the company. The former chief operating officer who joined the Bajaj board in 2016 recorded a jump of 58 percent to Rs 6.65 crore in the package in FY19 from Rs 4.21 crore of FY18.

Rakesh Sharma who was also inducted into the Bajaj Auto board as executive director from January 1, 2019, became the fourth highest paid employee of Bajaj Auto drawing a package of Rs 5.47 crore as of last financial year. His FY18 salary details were not shared by the company.

“A combination of well styled, appealing products and astute pricing, Bajaj Auto has begun to grow its domestic market share in motorcycles. In the course of a single year, FY2019, your company succeeded in increasing its domestic sale of motorcycles by almost 29 percent — and, in the process, grew its market share by 3 percentage points to 18.7 percent. In fact, for March 2019, the market share exceeded 20 percent,” said Rahul Bajaj in his address to the shareholders on Bajaj Auto.