In April-March 2016, India’s largest homegrown e-commerce company paid more than Rs 10 crore to six of its employees and over a crore to 101 others, regulatory filings sourced by data platform Tofler shows.
The compensation to these top-paid employees alone takes the company’s remuneration bill to around Rs 300 crore.
Six of the highest paid people at Flipkart in fiscal 2016 were:
Amod Malviya and Mekin Maheshwari left their positions in July and September 2015, respectively, and took up advisory roles in the company.
These remunerations include salary, allowances, leave travel allowances, company’s contribution to provident fund, superannuation fund, and gratuity fund, among other things, according to the filing made by Flipkart to the Registrar of Companies.
Update: Hours after the post was published, Flipkart responded to our query saying, “The remuneration figures cited include a significant portion of liquidated ESOPs that had been accumulated over the years… The law does not require liquidation of ESOP details to be separately stated and the (RoC) filings have been made by disclosing all the particulars mandated by the law.”
These massive payouts were made even as the company was bleeding.
In the fiscal year 2016, Flipkart Internet (which operates Flipkart) posted a loss of Rs 2,306 crore, more than doubled from a year ago. This despite revenue growing around 140% to Rs1,952 crore.
The payouts are also from a period when the company, headquartered in Bengaluru, was facing devaluation and difficulty in raising fresh funds at preferred valuation.
In March 2016, investor Morgan Stanley trimmed Flipkart’s valuation by 27% to $11 billion. By April 2016, the company had faced rejections from several potential investors, the Mint reported.
No comparison
Flipkart’s fierce rival Amazon India was pretty modest in comparison.
In fiscal 2016, the highest-paid employee at Amazon Seller Services, the American company’s main unit in India, was Stephen Walter, the HR director for India and China. Walter got Rs 4.29 crore. Amazon’s India head Amit Agarwal received Rs3.16 crore.
Below are the 10 highest-paid employees at Amazon Seller Services in the 2016 fiscal year, according to the company’s filing with the Registrar of Companies.
“We do not discuss specifics of employee remuneration as these are confidential but Amazon India remains committed to offering its employees competitive, market-benchmarked salaries with a challenging career path and fulfilling work environment,” an Amazon India spokesperson told Quartz. Flipkart did not respond to an email query.
In fiscal 2016, Amazon’s losses and revenue in India more than doubled to Rs3,572 crore and Rs2,275 crore, respectively.
This article first appeared on Quartz.