Sun TV Network Ltd chairman Kalanithi Maran and executive director Kavery Kalanithi have decided to freeze their salaries for the current financial year, the second year in a row.
The husband-wife duo “expressed their intention to voluntarily limit their remuneration” to a sum not exceeding the amount they earned in 2017-18, the media company said in a stock-exchange filing.
The remuneration would include salary and ex gratia/bonus payouts.
Maran and Kavery Kalanithi received a cash compensation of Rs 87.5 crore each in 2017-18. It included salary, ex gratia and bonus. In the previous year, they had earned Rs 77.9 crore each.
In August last year, the Marans had frozen their salaries for 2018-19 at the same level as the year before.
The 2017-18 salary made them the highest-paid promoters in India Inc. They were also the second-highest earners based on cash compensation.
The Marans have been part of the highest-paid CEOs’ list for the past several years. The list also includes the likes of Tech Mahindra Ltd’s CP Gurnani, Hero MotoCorp’s Pawan Munjal, JSW Steel’s Sajjan Jindal, Apollo Tyre’s Onkar Kanwar and HDFC Bank’s Aditya Puri.
The Marans’ decision to keep their salaries unchanged despite the Chennai-based company recording strong growth in revenue and profit. The company’s consolidated operating revenue jumped 28% to Rs 3,782.5 crore for 2018-19 while net profit climbed 26% to Rs 1,433.7 crore.
However, in the first quarter of 2019-20, revenue fell 1.1% to Rs 1,131 crore and net profit dropped 7.4% to Rs 386.8 crore, the company said in another stock-exchange filing on Friday.
