The highest paid at BCCL

BY PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA and A. BANERJEE| IN Media Business | 25/11/2014

Of the 81 individuals listed in BCCL's annual report for 2013-14 as highly-paid directors and/or employees, three members of the Jain family received 54 per cent of the total remuneration paid to all of them.

And less than 10 journalists figure in the list, report PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA and A. BANERJEE (Pix: BCCL logo).

Guess who's the wealthiest member of the Jain family which controls India's biggest media conglomerate, the Times group of companies led by its flagship, Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited? (BCCL is the largest publishing company in India and South Asia which brings out the Times of India, the most widely-circulated English daily in the world.)

Some of you may have thought it would be 78-year-old family matriarch Indu Jain who is the designated chairperson of BCCL. Or you may have presumed that it is her older son Samir Jain, 60, vice chairman and managing director of the company. If you thought along these lines, you would be wrong.

The richest member of the family that has promoted the Times group is younger sibling Vineet Jain, 49, managing director of BCCL. During the financial year that ended on 31 March 2014, he received a remuneration of Rs 46.38 crore whereas his older brother's remuneration was Rs 37.52 crore and his mother's remuneration stood at Rs 15.53 crore, according to the official records of the company submitted to the government's Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

But wait! That's not all of what Vineet Jain received from BCCL. At the company's annual general meeting held on 25 August, a resolution was passed by its shareholders approving the payment of a "one-time special bonus" of Rs 17.5 crore to him during the current financial year, that is, 2014-15 (see the copy of resolution at the end of the article).

This information has been disclosed in the BCCL directors’ report as required under Section 217 (2A) of the Companies Act, 1956. This section makes it mandatory for a company to disclose remuneration paid to any employee or director in excess of Rs 5 lakh a month.

It is interesting to note that out of the 81 individuals listed in BCCL's annual report for 2013-14 as highly-paid directors and/or employees, the three members of the Jain family received more than half (54 per cent) of the total remuneration paid to all these directors and employees of the company with the remaining 78 people receiving 46 per cent of the total amount.

This proportion of 46 per cent included the remuneration paid to Trishla Jain and Satyan Gajwani, daughter and son-in-law of Samir Jain. While Trishla Jain, 30, an executive director in BCCL received Rs 69 lakh during 2013-14, her husband Satyan Gajwani, 29, also an executive director of the company besides holding the post of chief executive officer of Times Internet Limited, received Rs 51 lakh. The two together drew only around 1.4 per cent out of the 46 per cent received by the 78 highly-paid employees of BCCL other than its promoters.

Satyan Gajwani is also the CEO of Times Business Solutions Limited. Both these are private limited companies whereas Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited is a public limited company although its shares are not listed on stock exchanges. Private limited companies are not legally required to make available their directors' report (with an annexure listing the names of employees who earn a remuneration of at least Rs 5 lakh a month) to the public. Hence, we are unable to ascertain how much Satyan Gajwani earns by way of remuneration from Times Internet and Times Business Solutions. All that we can ascertain is his remuneration from BCCL.

Comparing the latest annual report of the company with the one presented in 2010-11, it is seen that while Vineet Jain's remuneration jumped by 184 per cent over this four year period, Samir Jain's remuneration just about doubled, their mother's remuneration barely went up (by hardly one per cent) while the remuneration of Satyan Gajwani from BCCL actually came down by 45 per cent.

Samir Jain had received Rs 18.70 crore as remuneration in 2010-11, Vineet Jain received Rs 16.30 crore, Indu Jain received Rs 15.39 crore, Satyan Gajwani (who was then executive assistant to the chief executive officer of BCCL, Ravindra Dhariwal) received Rs 93 lakh while Trishla Jain's name was missing from the list of names of highly-paid employees in the directors’ report of BCCL for that year.

It should be noted that these figures pertain only to remuneration received from BCCL and not from other companies in the Times group. Also, the remuneration structure disclosed may not necessarily reflect the true "cost to company" of particular employees and directors. This is because the remuneration that is mandatory to disclose does not include each and every kind of payment for perquisites, which could include reimbursement of expenses incurred on business development, entertainment, hotel and transport.

Of the roughly 11,000 employees of BCCL, other than the three members of the Jain family of promoters, the highest paid employee is CEO Dhariwal who received Rs 5.58 crore in 2013-14 against Rs 3.08 crore four years earlier, implying a more than 80 per cent rise in his remuneration in this period. After him, the most highly-paid BCCL executives are Arunabh Das Sharma, executive director and president (Rs 3.66 crore), Shrijeet Mishra, chief operating officer (Rs 2.91 crore), R. Sundar (Rs 2.64 crore) and Joy Chakraborthy (Rs 2.29 crore), both designated director, response. The other highly-paid employees in the list each earned less than Rs 2 crore during 2013-14.

Among the editorial staffers of BCCL, less than ten find their names in the list of 81 highly-paid employees. Leading them in the 11th position is Jaideep Bose, editorial director, the Times of India, who received a remuneration of Rs 1.94 crore in 2013-14, down from Rs 4.24 crore in 2010-11.

Two years ago, he had written to thehoot.org pointing out that the amount mentioned as his remuneration in 2010-11 was inflated on account of the inclusion of a "substantial component (greater than 50 per cent) attributable to adjustment made for retention bonus paid... after deducting taxes, in an earlier year" and that his "actual annual recurring remuneration (was) significantly lower than the amount stated".

Besides Bose, the other journalists in the list of highly-paid employees of BCCL during 2013-14 are Rahul Joshi, editorial director, the Economic Times, and seven others: R. Sridharan, executive editor of the ET Now television channel, Nikunj Dalmia, senior editor, Shailendra Swaroop Bhatnagar, chief editor, markets and research, Santosh Ramachandra Menon, assistant executive editor, Bodhisatva Ganguly, deputy executive editor, Omar Qureshi, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of the Zoom television channel and Nabeel Mohideen, national head, integrated desk.

Such articles are only possible because of your support. Help the Hoot. The Hoot is an independent initiative of the Media Foundation and requires funds for independent media monitoring. Please support us. Every rupee helps.