Family-run firms top India Inc for salaries in crores

It may be a popular belief that MNCs give the fattest pay packets, but it is actually family- controlled corporate houses that lead the tally by a wide margin when it comes to paying salaries running into crores.

An analysis of executives getting paid at least Rs 1 crore annual remuneration in the country shows that more than 85 per cent of such people are with companies controlled by various business families.

The remaining 15 per cent include those working with the local arms of global MNCs (multi-national companies), PSUs and other domestic firms that are controlled by non-family entities such as institutions and trusts.

This means that there was only one executive who got paid Rs 1 crore or more at a non-family promoted company during the last fiscal (2009-10) for every seven persons working with a business family-run company and taking home such an annual pay package.

The ratio was further skewed in the previous fiscal, 2008-09, when there was only one such executive with a non-family promoted company for every 14 with family-controlled companies, shows an analysis of remuneration figures compiled by data services provider CapitalLine.

In actual terms, there were a total of 443 executives who were paid salaries running into crores of rupees during 2008-09, including 411 working with companies that were promoted by a business family.

As per the latest available data for 2009-10, so far, companies have disclosed having paid annual remuneration of more than Rs 1 crore to a total of 265 executives. This include 41 top executives of non-family controlled firms.

Among these 41 persons, nearly half are with Indian arms of global MNCs, two from government companies and the remaining at companies like ICICI, HDFC and the Tata Group, where the controlling stakes are not with any business family.

While Tata Group has at least eight such executives, HDFC has seven and ICICI has four.

The other major business having paid annual pay packets worth crores of rupees to their top executives in 2009-10 include Anil Agarwal-led Sterlite group (six executives) and Torrent, Ajay Piramal Group, Hari S Singhania and Bajaj groups (five executives each).

Others include the Mukesh Ambani group (four executives, including Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani himself), as well as the O P Jindal, Kalyani, R P Goenka and Apollo groups (four each).

Those with three such executives included the Alembic, Dr Reddy's, Godrej, Kotak, Mafatlal, Mahindra and Raheja groups.
    
However, all the companies have not yet disclosed their top executive pay figures for 2009-10 and the tally might change, as the current one is based on the latest available information only.