CEO Vinod Gupta underpaid
By Shalini Singh

Vinod Gupta is one of the great success stories of Indian migrants to USA.  After completing his degree from IIT, Kharagpur, he went to pursue higher studies in USA.  Today, Vinod runs business and info database provider infoUSA worth 750 million dollars.

Vinod Gupta is very close to the Clintons. President Bill Clinton even nominated him to become the US Ambassador to Fiji which he politely declined due to business commitments.  Vinod is a popular fixture in the high profile Indian functions in USA.

All was going well till 2008, when the US Government’s SEC started an investigation into infoGroup.  Soon after this SEC investigation, infoGroup removed Vinod Gupta from the post of Chairman but he continued his role as CEO. A new CFO was also appointed.  SEC, in its report found that ‘various related party transactions, expense reimbursements, and corporate expenditures were excessive.’  Vinod agreed to pay back his company $9 million on final settlement of all the litigation related to his matter.

That was 2008.  How things have changed in one year!

As luck would have it, infoGroup has used a ‘new’ methodology in 2009 and found that it was actually underpaying Vinod Gupta to the tune of a couple of million dollars for utilizing the company’s yacht and airplane.  Footnoted is reporting

“
On Dec 3, InfoGroup (IUSA) (formerly known as infoUSA) filed an amended 10-K with SEC.

On completion of the analysis, InfoGroup concluded based on new methodology…that there were more personal benefits to Mr. Gupta than had been previously concluded for fiscal years 2003 through 2008.”

How much more? A lot more. Take the company yacht, for example. In 2008, the company reported no personal benefit — that’s zero — to Gupta for use of the company yacht. In the revised filing, the number was listed as $873,078! In 2007, that expense was listed as $5,836. The actual number per yesterday’s filing? $770,433. The yacht — remember this company is based in land-locked Omaha, so there’s also the question of getting to the yacht first since we don’t think it was sailing on the Missouri — isn’t the only oops. In 2006, the company reported Gupta’s personal jet usage to be $125,708. Yesterday, that number was revised to $460,950, or nearly three times as much. Expense reimbursements to Gupta were also vastly understated in the original filing: just $156,682 in 2007. Under the “new math” that number blossomed to $368,309.
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It is all a matter of perception. The US Government thought you were being overpaid last year.  Now, your company tells you it was actually underpaying you.