Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai’s Annual Salary Unchanged at $1.8 Million

Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai‘s salary for the latest fiscal year amounted to $1.8 million, unchanged from the previous year.

But in yen terms, that amounted to ¥202 million for the fiscal year ending in March, up 10 percent from ¥184 million in the previous year. Hirai, who divides his time between the U.S. and Japan, is paid in dollars. But it costs Sony 10 percent more when looking at it in yen terms due to the weaker Japanese currency.

Hirai was also given stock options worth around $950,000 (¥114 million), down a third in yen terms, and worth approximately another 10 percent less in dollars compared to last year.

CFO Kenichiro Yoshida, tipped by some as Hirai’s likely successor, was paid ¥53 million ($442,000) and received options worth about ¥92 million ($760,000).

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Hirai faced questions about his pay from shareholders at the annual meeting in Tokyo earlier on Tuesday. Sony posted a full-year loss of $1.25 billion (¥128.4 billion) for the fiscal year, and Hirai said at the meeting that he and other senior executives were forgoing their bonuses again for the new fiscal year, just as they did for the prior year.

Sony’s senior executives in Tokyo have not taken their bonuses since 2011 and have taken between 5 and 10 percent pay cuts since 2012.

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The annual shareholders meeting was a relatively sedate affair compared to previous years, with no hedge funds calling for the entertainment division to be spun off and investors generally happier thanks to the doubling of Sony’s stock price over the last 12 months.

Following Hirai’s opening remarks, CFO Yoshida presented a roundup of Sony’s results for the past financial year.

“We managed to record increased revenue thanks to a weaker yen, along with strong sales of the PlayStation 4 console and image sensors. Due to a write-down on the mobile phone business, we were unable to deliver a net profit to our shareholders,” said Yoshida.

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“The TV manufacturing business, which has been a troubled division, delivered its first profit in 11 years, thanks to a focus on high-end models such as 4K sets,” added Yoshida, noting that the TV operations have been spun off into a separate entity as part of the extended restructuring that Sony has been implementing.

Hirai then set out the next three-year plan, after apologizing again for failing to produce a profit for shareholders and canceling dividend payments for the first time since Sony went public 60 years ago. Dividends will be resumed in the current fiscal year.

Sony shares closed up 2.6 percent in Tokyo at ¥3,827 ($30.95), outperforming the main Nikkei 225 index, which rose 1.9 percent.

Twitter: @GavinJBlair