HDFC MF chief Milind Barve gets Rs 26.21 crore in salary, ESOPs

New Delhi: Top fund house HDFC Mutual Fund’s chief Milind Barve has got a total remuneration of Rs 26.21 crore for the latest fiscal 2015-16, but a large portion came from exercise of ESOPs previously granted to him. The disclosure follows a diktat from markets regulator Sebi to all fund houses to disclose their respective top-management salaries.  Barve’s pay package included Rs 6.25 crore as salary component and Rs 19.96 crore came from exercise of ESOPs (Employee Stock Options Plans) that were granted to him earlier. Prashant Jain, Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) with HDFC Mutual Fund, earned Rs 6.16 crore as a salary component and Rs 16.33 crore from ESOPs. These ESOPs were granted over the period of 2008-2013. The other executives of HDFC MF took home salaries ranging from Rs 13 crore to Rs 1 crore. As many as 38 persons received remuneration in excess of Rs 1 crore. Sundeep Sikka, the top honcho of Reliance MF, received a pay package of Rs 13.74 crore – which included Rs 3.5 crore as salary and over Rs 10 crore as a one-time payout. Sunil Singhania CIO (Equity Investment) took home Rs 8 crore, which also included a significant one-time component. Reliance MF paid a total compensation of Rs 41.5 crore to its top executives, which included one-time payouts comprising ESOPs as well as perks for marking the completion of 20 years of the fund house. ICICI Prudential MF paid Rs 5.4 crore to its Managing Director Nimesh Shah, while S Naren, CIO at the fund house earned a salary of Rs 4.75 crore. A total of 15 executives received remuneration of more than Rs 1 crore. ICICI MF is the largest fund house with an assets under management of Rs 1,75,880.87 crore, followed by HDFC MF (Rs 1,75,779.38 crore) and Reliance MF (Rs 1,58,408.45 crore) In March, Sebi directed fund houses to disclose annual salary of all employees earning Rs 60 lakh or above within one month of a financial year, starting with 2015-16. Accordingly, all fund houses needed to publish the details by today, after taking into account the weekend holidays for the last two days. This is part of Sebi’s effort to promote transparency in remuneration policies so that executive salary is aligned with the interest of investors. While a few mutual fund houses have complied with Sebi’s directive and disclosed the information, others still have to comply with the rule. Mutual Fund houses made a representation through industry body AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India) this evening before the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) Chairman U K Sinha, but were told in clear terms that “the requirement is non-negotiable” and must be complied with immediate effect. They have been asked by Sebi and Amfi to expedite the process and disclose the remuneration by tonight itself. Quantum MF said that the salaries of its top executives range from Rs 35 lakh to about Rs 77 lakh. However, smaller players also paid remuneration in excess of Rs 1 crore. UTI MF, whose Chief Leo Puri is chairman of Amfi, and Birla Sunlife whose head A Balasubramanian is Vice Chairman of the industry body, were yet to disclose the salaries till late evening.