Mukesh Ambani draws no salary for 5th year, his promoter group gets over ₹3,600 crore in dividends

Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, drew nil salary for the fifth consecutive year from Reliance Industries Ltd, the oil-to-telecom conglomerate he chairs, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Ambani, 68, voluntarily gave up his salary in the financial year 2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021) amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and has since continued the practice.

For FY25, he received ‘nil’ as salary, allowances, perquisites, or retirement benefits from the company.

The billionaire derives his income primarily from dividends.

With a direct holding of 1.61 crore shares in Reliance, Ambani earned ₹8.85 crore in dividends based on the company’s declared dividend of ₹5.50 per share for FY25.

Promoter group entities controlled by him, which collectively own 664.5 crore shares or 50.07% of Reliance, received ₹3,655 crore in dividends.

Ambani, ranked 18th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth just shy of USD 100 billion, had capped his annual compensation at ₹15 crore from FY09 to FY20.

Reliance Executive Directors Nikhil and Hital Meswani, Ambani’s cousins, saw a slight dip in their FY25 remuneration to ₹25 crore each from ₹25.31 crore and ₹25.42 crore, respectively, in the previous year. Their pay included unchanged commissions of ₹17.28 crore.

Meanwhile, Executive Director P M S Prasad's remuneration rose to ₹19.96 crore, up from ₹17.93 crore in FY24, including performance-linked incentives for FY24 paid in the current fiscal.

Ambani’s children—Isha, Akash, and Anant—who joined the Reliance board as non-executive directors in October 2023, received ₹6 lakh each in sitting fees and ₹2.27 lakh as commission in FY25, up from ₹4 lakh and ₹97,000, respectively, in the prior year.

Anant Ambani has since been appointed an executive director and is expected to earn between ₹10 crore and ₹20 crore annually going forward.

Other non-executive and independent directors, including former SBI chair Arundhati Bhattacharya, K V Kamath, and Yasir Othman H Al Rumayyan, received ₹2.25 crore as commission and sitting fees.

Ambani, who took over as chairman of Reliance after the death of his father and founder Dhirubhai Ambani in 2002, was reappointed for a five-year term in 2023, continuing through April 2029.