Sony New CEO
Mr. Hirai may have been given the corner office suite at the Japanese entertainment and electronics group in April, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his paycheck.
On Wednesday, after the company held its annual shareholders’ meeting, Sony Corp. Sony Corp. SNE -1.36% disclosed the pay for three of its corporate executives including Mr. Hirai. In the past fiscal year ended March, Mr. Hirai received a relatively modest ¥115.6 million ($1.45 million) in salary, stock options, and benefits, a 24% cut from his pay in the same period a year earlier — and only a quarter of the compensation received by the man he replaced. He was the lowest paid of the three executives whose pay was disclosed in the regulatory filing.
A Sony spokesman declined to comment on whether Mr. Hirai’s pay will increase in the current fiscal year, but he said top executives will receive a cut in base salary in the year to March 2013, although this will not affect performance bonuses.
Most of Sony’s top brass took a cut in pay to take responsibility for losses at the company. Former CEO Howard Stringer also received a cut in compensation to ¥449.5 million, down 48% from a year earlier. Nicole Seligman, Sony’s general counsel, saw her pay drop by 31% to ¥138.3 million.
The pay cuts reflect shareholder anger at the disappointing performance of the company’s shares. After four straight years in the red including a record annual loss in the past fiscal year, Sony’s shares are at historic lows.
Shares of the Japanese electronics and entertainment group are down nearly 50% from a year ago. It’s not merely a short-term decline either. The company’s stock price has tumbled more than 80% in the last five years.
“Sony’s business is in a very severe state. I am fully aware of this and I promise to change Sony and revive the company,” said Mr. Hirai at the meeting.
He pledged to change Sony by strengthening its core electronics division and fixing the problems at its television division. He also said he aims to restore the sense of wonder consumers experienced from Sony products in the past.
Shareholders didn’t hide their exasperation over the losses. One man questioned why Sony’s new board still included Mr. Stringer and Vice Chairman Ryoji Chubachi, lambasting the new management for not making a clean break from the past regime. Another said Mr. Stringer shouldn’t use the floods in Thailand or the Japanese earthquake and tsunami as excuses for the company’s poor performance.
