Infosys CEO Salil Parekh's Salary Falls By 21% In FY23
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh’s total salary stood at Rs 56.44 crore in FY23, as against Rs 71 crore in FY22.
The annual compensation of Infosys Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh dropped by a fifth in the fiscal ended March 31, 2023. That was still 627 times the average Infosys salary.
Parekh earned a total remuneration of Rs 56.44 crore in FY23, as against Rs 71 crore in the previous financial year, according to Infosys’ annual report released on Saturday. That was primarily due to the fact that he exercised fewer restricted stock units during the fiscal.
Restricted stock units, a form of stock-based employee compensation, are restricted during a vesting period that may last several years, during which time they cannot be sold. Once they are vested, RSUs can be sold or kept like any other shares of company stock.
In comparison, the median Infosys salary was Rs 9 lakh. Meaning, Parekh’s earnings were 627 times that of an average Infosys employee. Additionally, Infosys had at least 125 employees who drew an annual compensation in excess of Rs 1 crore.
Still, the CEO was not the highest paid employee at the company. Outgoing President Mohit Joshi, who is set to take over as Tech Mahindra Ltd.’s CEO in December, took home a total of Rs 57.32 crore. Chairman Nandan Nilekani chose not to receive any compensation for the full year.
Parekh’s salary was also lower than that of Thierry Delaporte, the CEO of crosstown rival Wipro Ltd. Delaporte earned $10 million (about Rs 82.5 crore) in FY23. Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji saw his compensation reduced by half to Rs 7.8 crore on eroding profit.
Financial Performance
In his letter to shareholders, Parekh warned of global headwinds impacting business, but “our strength in digital, cloud and automation, along with cost efficiencies, have held us in good stead”.
Revenue of India’s second largest IT services firm grew 20.7% over the year ago to Rs 1.46 lakh crore in FY23, according to the annual report. That, when net profit expanded 8.9% year-on-year to Rs 24,108 crore.
Infosys FY23 Results: Key Highlights (YoY)
Revenue up 20.7% at Rs 1.46 lakh crore
EBIT up 9.53% at Rs 30,905 crore
EBIT margin at 21.05% vs 23.19%
Net profit up 8.9% at Rs 24,108 crore
In constant currency terms, the company grew at 15.4%. Digital revenue made up 62.2% of the overall earnings.
As far as dealmaking is concerned, Infosys clocked a total contract value of $9.8 billion from 95 large deal wins. The company now has 40 clients that bring in over $100 million in annual revenue, 75 worth over $50 million.
“We see our One Infosys approach helping support our clients by bringing all our capabilities and the strength of our entire employee base to work for their benefit,” Parekh said in the letter to shareholders. “We recruited over 50,000 college graduates in the year and ended the year with more than 3,40,000 employees. At the end of the year, 39% of our employees were women.”
In the fiscal ended March 31, 2023, Infosys returned to shareholders as much as $3.1 billion—$1.7 billion as dividend and $1.4 billion through share buybacks. The company had a free cash flow of Rs 20,433 crore.
“Our CEO, Salil Parekh, and his global leadership team, realised early on the value that the advanced digital technologies like AI and cloud, and more recently, generative AI, can bring to imagine and execute for multiple options in the future,” Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and executive chairman at Infosys, said in the annual report.
“Today, Infosys is steadily progressing towards a future where we don’t just solve immediate business problems, but continually innovate and architect for challenges that may emerge in the future. We build it for ourselves first, and then take it widely to our clients.”