Zerodha's Nithin Kamath clarifies speculation around Rs 100 Cr salary; cites meeting liquidity requirements as the reason

Zerodha Founder and CEO Nithin Kamath took to social media platform Twitter on Sunday to clarify that the salary he, his brother, and his wife will be drawing will be lesser than Rs 100 crore. He said it is an enabling resolution that allows them as working promoters to draw salaries up to the number in case of liquidity requirements.

Ever since the news around the Kamath brothers (Nithin and Nikhil) and Seema Patil (Nithin's wife), who is a whole-time director in the company, getting Rs 100 crore salaries broke, social media was abuzz with myriad reactions.

However, the fintech unicorn's co-founder clarified this to put an end to the speculation surrounding their salaries.

"I’m surprised by the unwanted noise around this whole salary news of Nikhil, Seema (my wife), & me. The headlines are misleading. We are a private company & no obligations to clarify, but we thought maybe we should, as there are folks who are misinterpreting this," Nithin said in a Tweet.

He further added,

Nithin also said that enabling de-risking is something the company is doing for its employees as well through its Rs 200 crore ESOP buyback programme. This amount is allocated from a portion of profits every year, he said.

Finally, Nithin said that "the actual salary will be lower, but it will still be high compared to the norm." "Promoters don't take out profits through salaries as it is tax-inefficient, you end up almost paying 50 percent in taxes."

Zerodha was founded in 2010 when Nithin, who had been trading in stock markets since he was 17-years-old, felt the need for an online trading platform to come into existence. Nithin and his brother Nikhil Kamath started Zerodha by focusing on day traders. Today, the stock brokerage platform has evolved to include long-term investors and millennials.

In 2020, Zerodha celebrated a decade in the business and formally claimed the unicorn status earlier in the year, ‘conservatively’ valuing itself at $1 billion, and announced an employee stock options buyback plan worth Rs 65 crore for around 700 of its employees.

In an earlier interaction with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, Nithin spoke about some of the important points when it comes to building a sustainable business and contributing to the society.