Neemuchwala’s salary hiked 12% in FY20; Azim and Rishad Premji give up variable pay

Former Wipro CEO Abidali Neemuchwala’s salary rose 12% to nearly Rs 31 crore for the financial year 2019-2020, even as founder Azim Premji and chairman Rishad Premji gave up profit-linked commissions for the year, as per a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Rishad Premji did not take his variable pay, which includes his bonus, either, it said. 

Neemuchwala, who served his last day at the company on June 1, will be replaced by former Capgemini COO Thierry Delaporte.

The salary of Jatin Dalal, CFO of the Bengaluru-based information technology (IT) services company, fell nearly half to Rs 4.43 crore, the filing showed.

Wipro’s peer TCS announced last month that its CEO Rajesh Gopinathan and COO N Ganapathy Subramaniam would take a 16% and 13% salary cuts in FY20.

However, the top brass at IT major Infosys witnessed over 25% pay hikes despite expecting revenue and profit loss during the financial year. While CEO Salil Parikh saw a 27% increase in his salary to $6.1 million for the financial year ending March 31, 2020, COO UB Pravin Rao, presidents Mohit Joshi and Ravi Kumar S, also received more than 25% hikes. The company, however, deferred promotions and increments of its employees.

Wipro expects the Covid-19 induced business uncertainty to last for the next few months.

Failure to renew projects might affect its long-term cost savings, while decreased technology spends may impact its gross margins in the near term, it said. Travel restrictions may affect future revenues, operating results and overall financial performance, it added.

“The conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic may affect the rate of customer spending, including through increased requests by customers for price discounts and adverse impacts on our ability to provide on-site services to our customers,” Wipro said in the regulatory filing.