Srinivas Pallia: CEO Srinivas Pallia sold all his Wipro shares before taking charge

A month and half before being appointed as the new chief executive at Wipro, Srinivas Pallia, who has been with the company for over three decades, sold all his shares worth Rs 5 crore in it in the public market.

Pallia disposed of his 1,00,000 Wipro shares through “market sale” on February 14 this year and the transaction was reported to the exchange on February 15. The total value of the transaction was Rs 5,05,12,640. As per information on the BSE, securities currently held by Pallia post transaction amounted to zero.

Wipro did not reply to queries by ET, citing a silent period ahead of its quarterly and annual results announcement on Friday.

On April 6, Wipro, India’s fourth largest software services firm, announced the sudden resignation of former CEO Thierry Delaporte 15 months earlier than the end of his five-year tenure. Pallia was elevated to the top job with immediate effect.

Wipro was under the scanner for its tepid revenue performance which had made it a laggard in FY23-24 compared to most of its large-cap Indian peers.

Critics also raised concerns of senior leadership attrition over the past two years. Wipro bled talent and saw about one and a half dozen exits over the last four years as Delaporte went about his “transformation agenda” at the $11 billion Bengaluru-headquartered company.

Pallia joined Wipro in 1992 and before becoming the CEO served as the head of Americas 1, Wipro’s biggest and fastest-growing strategic market. Pallia is based in New Jersey and reports to chairman Rishad Premji.Wipro shares have seen a rally of close to 27% in the last one year. On Monday, they ended 2.47% lower at Rs 459.25 on the BSE.

Outsourcing expert and CEO at EIIRTrend Pareekh Jain said: “The timing of Pallia’s share sale is interesting. So, either he needed money or was he thinking of joining the ranks of many of his former colleagues by quitting and therefore, Wipro’s board was compelled to fast forward the CEO transition process by a year in advance?”

The new CEO will have a new contract with the company and accordingly, his compensation will be structured. Generally in IT companies, senior leaders’ salary structure has many parts – base salary, allowances, bonus or incentives, variables and stock units like performance stock units, restricted stock units, and ESOPs (employee stock ownerships), experts said.