Both received ₹87.50 crore each, comprising ₹13.87 crore in salary and ₹73.63 crore as ex-gratia and bonus, the company's FY25 annual report showed.
Sun TV promoter Kalanithi Maran and his wife Kavery Kalanithi have once again retained their spot among the highest-paid executive duos in India, drawing a combined remuneration of around ₹175 crore in FY25.
Both received ₹87.50 crore each, comprising ₹13.87 crore in salary and ₹73.63 crore as ex-gratia and bonus, the company's FY25 annual report showed. Their compensation has remained unchanged at ₹175 crore for several years, including during the Covid-19 period. Their daughter, Kaviya Kalanithi Maran, also earned ₹1.09 crore in managerial remuneration.
Maran's lead in India Inc's payout outstrips
The Marans' payout outstrips that of most other top executives in India Inc. Persistent Systems' CEO and ED Sandeep Kalra topped the charts among executives with ₹148.09 crore in FY25, while Hero MotoCorp CMD Pawan Munjal drew ₹109.41 crore. Bajaj Finance executive vice chairman Rajeev Jain earned ₹102.10 crore, including ₹80 crore from ESOPs, marking his second straight year above ₹100 crore. HCL Tech CEO C Vijayakumar took home ₹94.6 crore, and L&T CMD SN Subrahmanyan's package nearly doubled to ₹76.25 crore.
Maran's dividend earnings
In addition to salary, Kalanithi Maran took home dividends worth ₹443.35 crore in FY25, higher than ₹406.4 crore a year ago. With a 75% stake in Sun TV, he accounted for three-fourths of the company's ₹591.13-crore dividend payout in the previous fiscal.
Sun TV's median remuneration for male employees stood at ₹514,658, nearly 909 times lower than that of the board of directors and key managerial personnel, including the Marans.
The fiscal also saw a brief family dispute. In June, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran issued a legal notice to his elder brother, alleging improper allotment of 1.2 million equity shares of Sun TV without fair valuation or shareholder consent. The matter was later settled, with Sun TV announcing earlier this month that all legal notices against promoter and executive chairman Kalanithi Maran had been unconditionally withdrawn, closing the dispute.