Mukesh Ambani’s children, Akash, Anant, and Isha, will not be paid a salary as board members of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). They will only receive a fee for attending board and committee meetings. All three of them are directors of RIL.
According to a PTI report, while Ambani, 66, has received no compensation from the firm since the fiscal year 2020-21, other executive directors, including his cousins Nikhil and Hital, are paid a salary, perquisites, allowances, and commission.
His three children, twins Akash and Isha (both 31) and Anant (28), would receive only a sitting fee and a commission on the firm’s profit. This was announced by RIL in a resolution seeking shareholder approval for the appointment of Ambani’s children to the board.
The terms of the appointment of RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani’s children, Akash, Anant, and Isha, to the board of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) are the same as the ones on which his wife Nita was appointed to the board in 2014.
This means that the children will not receive a salary, but will only be paid a sitting fee for board and committee meeting. They will also not be eligible for any other remuneration or benefits from RIL, such as stock options, bonuses, or commissions.
Nita Ambani earned a sitting fee of Rs 6 lakh and a commission of Rs 2 crore in the 2022-23 fiscal year (April 2022 to March 2023), according to the company’s latest annual report.
Ambani, 66, announced last month at the company’s annual shareholders meeting that his three children, Akash, Isha, and Anant, will be appointed into Reliance’s board of directors (BoD).
He also indicated that he will remain the company’s chairman and CEO for another five years, with an emphasis on developing and empowering its ‘next-gen’ executives.
Reliance has already mailed a postal ballot to shareholders seeking approval for their appointment to the company’s board of directors.
“They shall be paid remuneration by way of fee for attending meetings of the Board or Committees thereof or for any other meetings as may be decided by the Board, reimbursement of expenses for participating in the Board and other meetings and profit-related commission,” the notice said.
Reliance has five primary verticals: the oil-to-chemical (O2C) industry, which houses the world’s largest single-location refining complex and petrochemical plants, telecom and digital business, retail (both physical and online), new energy, and recently announced financial services.
Ambani first mentioned a succession plan for the oil-to-telecom conglomerate in 2022, when he declared that each of his three children will oversee different parts of the company (Akash would oversee telecom, Isha would oversee retail, and Anant would oversee new energy).
He did not reveal Reliance’s mainstay oil-to-chemicals or O2C business division’s succession strategy.
Reliance shareholders approved Ambani’s reappointment as CEO of India’s most valuable firm at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) last month. And, as in the previous three years, he has chosen not to be paid during this time.
Nita resigned as a Reliance director as part of the succession planning, but she has been made a permanent invitee to all board meetings – a status that none of the board members have – Mukesh Ambani and other directors need shareholders’ approval for any extension beyond their current approved terms, but she will remain on the board in perpetuity.
Isha, a Yale University graduate with a double degree in Psychology and South Asian Studies and a Stanford University MBA, “is driving the expansion of Reliance Retail into new categories, geographies, and formats,” according to the shareholder notification.
“She has been instrumental in the expansion of Reliance Retail’s own brand portfolio including the acquisition of some exciting Indian brands and launch of the ‘Independence’ brand,” it added.
Akash, a Brown University economics graduate, is the CEO of India’s largest telecom business, Jio. “At Jio, he spearheads the creation of products and services that leverage new-age technologies like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and the Internet of Things,” stated the statement.
Isha directly holds 0.12 per cent equity shares of the company.
Ambani owns 41.46 per cent of Reliance shares.
Anant, also a graduate of Brown University, “is driving the expansion of energy and materials businesses of Reliance and its global operations in renewable and green energy.” “Under his leadership, Reliance aims to become a Net Carbon Zero company by 2035 by building world-scale capabilities in the production of clean fuels and materials of the future, developing next-generation carbon capture and storage technologies, creating holistic and circular materials businesses, and maximising crude to chemicals conversion,” the notice said.
Since October 2014, Akash and Isha have been on the boards of directors of both Jio and Reliance Retail. Anant serves on the boards of retail and Jio in addition to organisations overseeing new energy industries. Isha has been appointed to the board of directors of Jio Financial Services.
Mukesh Ambani has been a member of the Reliance board of directors since 1977 and was appointed chairman upon the death of his father and firm patriarch Dhiburhai Ambani in July 2002.
From fiscal year 2008-09 (April 2008 to March 2009) to FY20 – 11 years – he had capped his yearly income at Rs 15 crore; and since FY21, he has chosen to renounce his salary owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, until the company and all of its subsidiaries were fully returned to their earning capacity.
As a result, he has not been paid a salary or profit-based commission for three years in a row, commencing in fiscal year 21.
The corporate Board has proposed that no salary or profit-based commission be paid to him for the next term beginning April 19, 2024, and ending April 18, 2029, at his request.
According to the annual report for 2022-23, his cousins Nikhil and Hital Meswani’s salary increased to Rs 25 crore each, including Rs 17.28 crore commission (unchanged from the previous fiscal year).
P M S Prasad and Pawan Kumar Kapil, Executive Directors, saw their pay raise.
While Prasad received Rs 13.50 crore in 2022-23, this included performance-linked bonuses awarded in 2021-22. He earned Rs 11.89 crore in 2021-22.
Kapil got Rs 4.40 crore, up from Rs 4.22 crore in 2021-22. He completed his 5-year term on May 15, 2023, and has since ceased to be a director of the company.
Ambani’s wife Nita, a non-executive director on the company’s board, earned Rs 6 lakh as a sitting fee (up from Rs 5 lakh in 2021-22) and another Rs 2 crore commission for 2022-23 (unchanged from the previous fiscal). She had in 2020-21 got Rs 8 lakh sitting fee and another Rs 1.65 crore commission.
Besides Nita Ambani, other non-executive directors include Dipak C Jain, Raghunath A Mashelkar, Adil Zainulbhai, Raminder Singh Gujral, Shumeet Banerji, former SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya, former CVC K V Chowdary and Saudi sovereign wealth fund nominee Yasir Othman H Al Rumayyan. All independent directors got a Rs 2 crore commission and sitting fee.
K V Kamath who was appointed on the Reliance board in January 2023 was paid a sitting fee of Rs 3 lakh and a commission of Rs 39 lakh.
With inputs from PTI
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