Vodafone, the world's largest mobile player by revenue, gave more than 33 million dollars (about 16.9 million pounds) to Sarin as salary and other benefits.
NEW DELHI: Lakshmi Mittal may be the richest Indian by virtue of his stake in world's biggest steel empire, but in terms of annual remuneration as a CEO he has been beaten by another India-born chief executive -- Arun Sarin.
Vodafone, the world's largest mobile player by revenue, gave more than 33 million dollars (about 16.9 million pounds) to Sarin as salary and other benefits in the form of cash, stocks and options in the financial year ended March 31, 2007.
Sarin got a base salary of 2.5 million dollars (1.27 million pounds), while his total cash remuneration including incentives and other benefits stood at 6.4 million dollars (3.24 million pounds), the company said in its annual report.
This is the largest ever annual cash remuneration received by Sarin as Vodafone CEO, exceeding his 3.196 million pound package in the year ended March 31, 2004.
This was higher than the salary taken by L N Mittal last year as CEO of Mittal Steel, to be renamed as ArcelorMittal.
The steel giant disclosed last month in its annual report Mittal earned a base salary of 2.005 million dollars, while total cash package including performance related payment stood at 3.68 million dollars.
Sarin was also granted shares worth seven million dollars (3.5 million pounds) under the company's short-term and long-term incentive plans, in addition to grant of stock options worth about 20 million dollars (10 million pounds).
The total share options held by Sarin at the end of last fiscal were valued at about 70 million dollars. Besides, he has accumulated shares worth about 22 million dollars, which have been given to him under various incentive plans.
In comparison, Mittal was awarded options worth just 1.8 million dollars as the Chairman and CEO of Mittal Steel, taking his total holding of options to about eight million dollars at the end of 2006.
A year ago, Sarin was lagging behind Mittal in terms of annual compensation by a small margin. The Vodafone CEO got a base salary of 2.18 million dollars in the previous year, just below 2.20 million dollars of Mittal.
While Sarin got a hike of about 35,000 dollars in his base salary, Mittal took a pay cut of 1,89,000 dollars in 2006. Mittal also did not get any performance related payment in 2005, although he held stock options worth about six million dollars at the end of that year.
Sarin's total cash package was around 5.4 million dollars in the previous year, including additional cash benefits.
The Vodafone CEO got a hike of 5,17,000 pounds, about 19 per cent in the year, apparently being considered a reward for successfully executing the 11 billion dollar Hutch-Essar acquisition in India that gives the UK firm an access to one of the world's fastest growing telecom market.
Earlier in FY05, Sarin had taken a pay cut of 6,90,000 pounds or over 21 per cent.
Sarin had come under sharp criticism last year when he took home a paycheck of over five million pounds with a hike of about nine per cent, despite a whopping loss of about 15 billion pounds posted by Vodafone.
The company, however, narrowed down its net loss to about 5.4 billion pounds in the latest fiscal primarily due to its shifting focus to emerging markets like India and Turkey.
However, the aggregate compensation paid by Vodafone to its collective senior management in the last fiscal dropped to 3.817 million pounds (7.2 million dollars), from 4.555 million pounds (about $9 million) a year ago.
However, Mittal scores over Sarin by a wide margin in terms of wealth, even though the former has not been awarded any performance-related stock grants.
As a main promoter of his steel empire, he holds shares worth about 40 billion dollars in the combined ArcelorMittal, which has a market value of about 90 billion dollars -- which is also the key factor behind his huge wealth making him the world's fifth richest person.
Sarin does not even figure in the list of billionaires of the world.
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