Gautam Adani's salary less than his top executives`

By global billionaire standards, it's peanuts. Gautam Adani, who oversees the Adani business empire, took home a thin pay package of just ₹9.26 crore in 2023-24 financial year. This was less than what the top executives of his own companies had drawn and, of course, lower than his peers. He only received salaries from two of the ten Adani Group companies.

Gautam Adani's total compensation for FY24 was ₹2.46 crore, a 3% rise year-on-year. This included a salary and benefits package of ₹2.19 crore from Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL), the group's flagship company, and an additional ₹6.8 crore drawn from Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ), AEL's annual report showed.

Family's compensation

Adani's family received significant compensation from the group companies in FY24. His brother Rajesh earned ₹8.37 crore, with a ₹4.71 crore profit commission from Adani Enterprises. Similarly, his nephew Pranav Adani took home ₹6.46 crore, including a ₹4.5 crore commission.

Gautam Adani did not receive any commission from AEL but was awarded ₹5 crore from APSEZ. His remuneration from APSEZ comprised a ₹1.8 crore salary and a ₹5 crore commission, payable in the 2024-25 fiscal year, the annual report noted.  

Gautam Adani's son, Karan, earned ₹3.9 crore from APSEZ. Gautam Adani's brother, nephew, and son did not receive salaries from multiple companies. Vinay Prakash, a key executive and director on the AEL board, received a total compensation of ₹89.37 crore. Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh's salary was ₹9.45 crore.

AEL's average compensation

"We reported an average remuneration increase of 12 percent for employees, excluding key managerial personnel (KMPs), with a slightly higher increase of 5.37 percent for KMPs," the AEL annual report said as quoted by PTI.

While Mukesh Ambani, India's wealthiest businessman, has forgone his entire salary since the onset of COVID-19—previously capping it at ₹15 crore—Adani's pay is significantly lower than that of telecom magnate Sunil Bharti Mittal ( ₹16.7 crore in 2022-23), Rajiv Bajaj ( ₹53.7 crore), Pawan Munjal ( ₹80 crore), L&T chairman S N Subrahmanyan, and Infosys CEO Salil S Parekh.

Adani, valued at $106 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, has been competing with Mukesh Ambani for the top spot of Asia's richest person. Adani briefly held the spot in 2022 but lost it after a critical report from US short-seller Hindenburg Research led to a significant drop in his group's market value, erasing nearly $150 billion at its lowest point last year.

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