Rishad Premji's Salary Halves On Eroding Wipro Profit In FY23

Wipro Ltd. Chairman Rishad Premji’s salary halved in the fiscal ended March in the first such decline since the onset of the pandemic.

Premji’s overall pay stood at $951,353 in FY23 as compared to $1,819,022 in FY22, according to Wipro’s Form 20-F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. His salary was down to $861,000 from $1.1 million last year.

He wasn’t paid a commission as the incremental consolidated net profit of the company was negative, the filing said. His compensation included a cash bonus—part of his fixed salary—but there were no stock options granted to him.

In comparison, Wipro’s Chief Financial Officer Jatin Dalal earned $1.08 million in FY23 as against $1.5 million in FY22. Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte drew a salary of $10 million in FY23, as against $10.5 million in the previous fiscal, the filings showed.

In FY20, Premji earned $0.68 million as compared to $0.98 million in FY19.

“In absolute terms, cost of revenues increased by 16.11%, primarily due to an increase in employee compensation,” Wipro said in the filing. These include salary hikes, promotions, hiring and subcontracting costs and travel expenses. “As a result of the foregoing factors, our gross profit as a percentage of our total revenue decreased by 100 basis points.”

Rishad Premji, son of Wipro Ltd.’s founder and Chairman Emeritus Azim Premji, joined the company in 2007 and became a member of the board in May 2015. As chief strategy officer, he led Wipro’s M&A strategy and set up Wipro Ventures—a $250 million fund for startups. On July 31, 2019, he was appointed chairman of the company for a period of five years.

Wipro’s US SEC filing comes against the backdrop of a lacklustre fiscal that India’s fourth largest IT services has had—net profit dipped 7.16% year-on-year to Rs 11,366.50 crore in FY23 on the back of revenue that grew 14.4% to Rs 23,190.30 crore.

The current financial year is looking bleak as well, with analysts predicting an earnings washout for India’s $245-billion IT industry in at least the first half of FY24.