The new Sony CEO doubles the company's projected annual loss to $6.4 billion, its worst ever, and will trim 10,000 jobs. (Big layoffs at the film and TV studios are not expected.)
TOKYO – Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai‘s pay for the latest fiscal year amounted to ?184 million ($1.8 million), up 20 percent from ?153 million in the previous year. Though the weaker yen keeps Hirai’s pay flat in dollar terms, it still costs Sony 20 percent more.
Nicole Seligman, who was recently given the added title of president of Sony’s U.S.-based entertainment, earned $1.53 million (?156 million) for the fiscal year ended March 31 for her role as president of Sony Corp. of America and general counsel. That also represented a 20 percent increase.
The higher compensation for the top executives came despite continuing losses at the Japanese entertainment and electronics conglomerate. Hirai, who divides his time between the U.S. and Japan, is paid in dollars.
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Sony Corp. discloses pay for its top corporate-level executives. It doesn’t disclose the pay of Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, to whom Seligman reports.
Sony Corp. disclosed that Hirai also received options for 200,000 Sony shares, and Seligman got 30,000, the same levels as last year. A regulatory filing with authorities in Tokyo doesn’t give their exact value as part of the executives’ pay, though.
Hirai and around 40 senior executives and managers at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters also declined to accept around $10 million in bonuses to take responsibility for continuing losses at the conglomerate’s struggling electronics division. Hirai had also not taken a bonus last year.
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Sony posted a full-year loss of $1.25 billion (?128.4 billion) for the fiscal year ended in March. It is forecasting another $490 million (?50 billion) of red ink for the current fiscal year to March 2015.
A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that Kaz Hirai was paid in yen.
Twitter: @GavinJBlair
