Cash-strapped Kingfisher gives its CEO fat hike

Air carriers may be flying through rough weather, but their top executives have got handsome pay hikes and the CEO of crisis-ridden Kingfisher has emerged as the second-highest paid among all his peers at the Vijay Mallya-led UB Group.

Among the country’s three listed airlines also, Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Agarwal’s pay package was the second highest in the last fiscal ended March 31, 2012, as per the remuneration details provided in their annual reports.

Recently, Kingfisher had to announce a temporary lockout due to employee unrest, triggered by non-payment of salaries to the staff.

While Agarwal has said that he has also not been paid any salary since April as there were no funds, his remuneration in the fiscal year 2011-12 rose nearly to Rs 4.01 crore, from Rs 2.12 crore in 2010-11.

As per the annual reports of seven listed companies of the UB group, its chairman and main promoter Vijay Mallya was paid a total amount of about Rs 1.43 crore (mostly in sitting fees) from various group companies.

While Mallya was not paid anything at Kingfisher and another group firm UB Engineering, he got sitting fees of Rs 1.2 lakh from United Spirits, Rs 1 lakh each at United Breweries Ltd and Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilisers, Rs 34,550 at McDowell Holdings and Rs 1.4 lakh at United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd.

Besides, Mallya received remuneration from two overseas subsidiaries, amounting to USD 120,000 (nearly Rs 63 lakh) and 89,600 (about Rs 76 lakh) British Pound during the year 2011-12.

Two of the seven listed companies — McDowell Holdings and UB Holdings Ltd — did not pay any remuneration to their Managing Director Harish Bhat while Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilisers’ MD Deepak Anand took a token salary of Re 1 per month. However, Harish Bhat received remuneration of Rs 1.31 crore as an executive of an associate company of UB Holdings Ltd.

Among other group firms, UB Engineering paid its MD J K Sardana a remuneration of Rs 65.5 lakh, up from Rs 39.1 lakh in the previous year. This included salary, perquisites, allowances and companies’ contribution to Provident Fund.

At United Spirits Ltd, Managing Director Ashok Capoor was paid a total remuneration of Rs 3.41 crore, while United Breweries Ltd MD Kalyan Ganguly was the highest paid among his peers at the group.

Ganguly’s remuneration rose from Rs 4.51 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 6.7 crore in the last fiscal 2011-12, but his pay increase in percentage terms at about 60 per cent was lower than that of the Kingfisher CEO at about 90 per cent.

Kingfisher said in its annual report that Agarwal’s stated remuneration “excludes accrued leave encashment and gratuity since the same have been recognised for the Company as a whole and cannot be determined at an employee level.”

Among Kingfisher’s peers in the Indian airline industry, the pay package of Kalanithi Maran-led group’s Spicejet chief Neil Raymond Mills rose even more sharply from Rs 1.75 crore to Rs 4.98 crore.

Agarwal has previously served as Spicejet chief as well.