Mukesh Ambani's pay cheque is over Rs 44 cr

NEW DELHI: Top business house Reliance Industries has given its chief Mukesh Ambani, the country's richest person and presumably top-paid executive, a hefty pay hike of about 45 per cent to take his annual remuneration to over USD10 million.
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, got a total payout of Rs 44.02 crore in financial year 2007-08, marking an increase of about Rs 13.5 crore from the previous fiscal. In fiscal 2006-07, Ambani's annual remuneration had increased to Rs 30.46 crore, from Rs 24.77 crore previously.
However, a large part of Ambani's full-year pay cheque comes in the form of commissions that the company pays to select executives as a ratio of its net profits. According to the company's annual report being sent to shareholders, Ambani got a salary of Rs 60 lakh (Rs 5 lakh per month) and another Rs 48 lakh (Rs 4 lakh per month) in the name of "perquisites and allowances". In addition, he got Rs 18.75 lakh under the head of "retiral benefits" and Rs 4,275.44 lakh toward commission on net profit, taking his total to Rs 4,402.19 lakh for 2007-08.
RIL Chief was the top-paid executive in fiscal 2006-07, followed by Madras Cement's Chairman and MD P R R Rajha, who had an annual payout of about Rs 24.8 crore. However, Ambani, who was ranked as world's fifth richest by Forbes magazine earlier this year with a net worth of USD 43 billion, may not find a place even among the 200 most paid chiefs globally.
In a separate list, Forbes named Oracle's CEO Larry Ellision at the top of 500 most paid CEOs in the US with a pay cheque of USD 192.9 million. A total 177 CEOs in the list had a salary of over USD 10 million. It is not yet clear whether Ambani would be highest paid executive in India for 2007-08, as most of the companies are yet to disclose the remuneration figures for that year.