Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

Under the Offer For Sale, Tata Sons will offload 23 crore shares and the International Finance Corporation will divest 3.58 crore shares.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

New Delhi:

Ratan Tata, the late Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, felt that his half-brother Noel Tata needed greater exposure and experience in handling difficult assignments to succeed him as the head of the principal investment holding firm and promoter of Tata companies, according to a recently released book.

Noel Tata, recently appointed as the Chairman of Tata Trusts — a collective of charities that indirectly controls the USD 165-billion salt-to-software conglomerate — after the death of Ratan Tata, was among several candidates interviewed in March 2011 when a search for his successor was underway.

Ratan Tata had decided to stay away from a selection committee to find his successor despite many wanting him to be a part of it — a decision he would later regret, according to a biography of the late veteran industrialist and philanthropist — Ratan Tata A Life — authored by Thomas Mathew and published by HarperCollins Publishers.

One of the reasons for Ratan Tata to stay away from the committee was that there were many aspirants from within the Tata Group, and he “wanted to give the contenders the comfort and confidence of knowing that a collective body of equals would recommend one of them based on a unanimous decision, or if not by a majority, and not on account of the Chairman’s preference”.

The second reason was more personal as there was the “overwhelming view that his half-brother Noel Tata was the ‘default candidate’ to succeed him” amid a push from the Parsis in the company and the traditionalists in the community as they considered him to be one of them.

However, according to the book, for Ratan Tata, only “the talent and the values of the person mattered”, with religion, community or the region contenders came from hardly relevant.

Ratan Tata was even open for the selection committee to consider foreigners if they had the right qualifications. The late Chairman Emeritus was also clear that he should not be seen as steering the selection committee or ‘pushing it in one direction or the other’.

Even in the event of Noel not being selected, Ratan Tata did not want to be seen as ‘anti-Noel’, wrote the author.

“Perhaps, if Noel had had the experience of handling difficult assignments, he could have established his credentials more forcefully,” the book quoted Ratan Tata as saying.

More importantly, Noel could have had the opportunity to demonstrate the ‘courage and enterprise’ that JRD had identified as a prerequisite to be appointed as the Tata group chairman.

“For Noel to compete successfully for the top post ‘he should have greater exposure than he has had,” said Ratan Tata. “Partly, his not having it has been his own choice.” Citing an interview with ‘the Times’, the book noted that Ratan Tata had stated that he ‘rose up through the business’ and added that even if he had a son, he would have done something to not have his son automatically become his successor.

Late Cyrus Mistry, who was initially part of the selection committee, was chosen to succeed Ratan Tata, who retired as Chairman of Tata Sons in December 2012.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Ratan Naval Tata, the business titan and global icon who led the Tata behemoth from thirty countries to over a hundred since becoming chairman in 1991, died today at Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital. He was 86 and was undergoing routine medical investigation due to his age.

Paying a tribute to Ratan Tata, his company Tata Sons today shared a remembrance note recalling his growing up years and his journey through the decades.

Ratan Tata, who became one of the most respected industrialists and philanthropists globally, was born to Naval and Soonoo Tata on December 28, 1937. He and his younger brother, Jimmy, were raised by their grandmother, Navajbai R Tata, in a baroque manor called Tata Palace in downtown Bombay (now Mumbai).

Navajbai, a formidable matriarch, instilled a strong set of values in her grandchildren. “She was very indulgent, but also quite strict in terms of discipline.” Mr Tata would recall in one his interviews where he opened up about his growing-up years. “We were very protected and we didn’t have many friends. I had to learn the piano and I played a lot of cricket,” he said.

RATAN TATA – SCHOOL AND COLLEGE YEARS

Mr Tata was schooled at Campion and then at Cathedral and John Connon – both in Mumbai. He then pursued his higher education at Cornell – an Ivy league university in the United States.

At Cornell he studied architecture and structural engineering, and his years in America from 1955 to 1962 influenced Mr Tata tremendously. It was, in multiple ways, the making of him. He travelled across America and was so charmed by California and the West Coast lifestyle that he was ready to settle down in Los Angeles, as per details shared by Tata Sons.

THE JOB AT IBM

When Navajbai’s health deteriorated. Mr Tata was forced to return to a life he thought he had left behind. “I was in Los Angeles and very happily so. And that was where I was when I left before I should have left,” Mr Tata had said in a 2011 interview with CNN.

Once back in India, Mr Tata had a job offer from IBM. JRD Tata wasn’t amused. “He called me one day and he said you can’t be here in India and working for IBM. I was in [the IBM office] and I remember he asked me for a resume, which I didn’t have. The office had electric typewriters so I sat one evening and typed out a resume on their typewriter and gave it to him.”

RELATIONS WITH HIS FATHER

Unlike his eldest son, Naval Tata was a gregarious and outgoing personality, equally at home in the company of kings and commoners. He became a director of Tata Sons, an eminent figure in the International Labour Organisation and a well-regarded sports administrator. Between father and son, though, the difference in temperament showed. “We were close and we were not,” Mr Tata would write in a special publication that celebrated the lives of Jamsetji Tata, JRD Tata and Naval Tata. “I left India when I was 15 for a decade. I would have to say that, as often happens between a father and a son, there was, perhaps, a divergence of views,” Tata sons shared in remembrance of Mr Tata.

“[My father] hated confrontations. He was very good at negotiating settlements… Frequently, that settlement would involve a compromise, and he was all for ‘give and take’. As a person, he gave in a great deal and sometimes, as younger and less mature people, we would fight with him for conceding ground in the quest for a solution, for peace or whatever,” he wrote, as per a remembrance tribute shared by Tata Sons.

THE ARCHITECT

As he has often said, architecture provided him with the equipment to be a perceptive business leader. Pity was that Mr Tata had only a handful of opportunities to use that equipment in the discipline proper, a house he designed for his mother, an abode in Alibaug and his own seafront home in Mumbai being the most prominent of these.

HIS PASSION AND HIS LOVE FOR PETS

Mr Tata had a bit more time for his other desires. Flying and fast cars, both of them, like so much else, born in the Cornell cauldron, were enduring passions. As was scuba diving till his ears could take the pressure no more.

A teetotaller and a nonsmoker, Mr Tata consciously chose to stay single. That seems so much like the man: a lonesome warrior wedded to the Tata cause. The company he kept in his book-lined abode in Mumbai were his German Shepherds, Tito and Tango, and his fondness for them was always boundless.

Too many of these pets of Mr Tata were snatched away by death and the loss took its toll, but he never gave up on the chance to bond with yet another loyal bounder. “My love for dogs as pets is ever strong and will continue for as long as I live,” he had once said.

“There is an indescribable sadness every time one of my pets passes away and I resolve I cannot go through another parting of that nature. And yet, two-three years down the road, my home becomes too empty and too quiet for me to live without them, so there is another dog that gets my affection and attention, just like the last one.”

A TIMELINE OF RATAN TATA’S LIFE AND TIMES

• 1937: Ratan Tata is born to Soonoo and Naval Tata.

• 1955: Leaves for Cornell University (Ithaca, New York, USA) at age 17; goes on to study architecture and engineering over a seven-year period.

• 1962: Awarded bachelor of architecture degree.

• 1962: Joins the Tata group as an assistant in Tata Industries; later in the year, spends six months training at the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (now called Tata Motors).

• 1963: Moves to Tata Iron and Steel Company, or Tisco (now called Tata Steel), at its Jamshedpur facility for a training programme.

• 1965: Is appointed technical officer in Tisco’s engineering division.

• 1969: Works as the Tata group’s resident representative in Australia.

• 1970: Returns to India, joins Tata Consultancy Services, then a software fledgling, for a short stint.

• 1971: Is named director-in-charge of National Radio and Electronics (better known as Nelco), an ailing electronics enterprise.

• 1974: Joins the board of Tata Sons as a director.

• 1975: Completes the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

• 1981: Is appointed Chairman of Tata Industries; begins the process of transforming it into a promoter of high-technology businesses.

• 1983: Drafts the Tata strategic plan.

• 1986-1989: Serves as Chairman of Air India, the national carrier.

• March 25, 1991: Takes over from JRD Tata as Chairman of Tata Sons and Chairman of the Tata trusts.

• 1991: Begins restructuring of the Tata group at a time when the liberalisation of the Indian economy is underway.

• 2000 onwards: The growth and globalisation drive of the Tata group gathers pace under his stewardship and the new millennium sees a string of high-profile Tata acquisitions, among them Tetley, Corus, Jaguar Land Rover, Brunner Mond, General Chemical Industrial Products and Daewoo.

• 2008: Launches the Tata Nano, born of the trailblazing small car project he guided and commanded with zeal and determination.

• 2008: Is awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian honour, by the Government of India.

• December 2012: Steps down as Chairman of Tata Sons after 50 years with the Tata group; is appointed Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons.

• October 9, 2024: Ratan Tata dies at the age of 86.

New Delhi:

Ratan Naval Tata, the business titan and global icon who led the Tata behemoth from thirty countries to over a hundred since becoming chairman in 1991, died today at Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital. He was 86 and was undergoing routine medical investigation due to his age.

Paying a tribute to Ratan Tata, his company Tata Sons today shared a remembrance note recalling his growing up years and his journey through the decades.

Ratan Tata, who became one of the most respected industrialists and philanthropists globally, was born to Naval and Soonoo Tata on December 28, 1937. He and his younger brother, Jimmy, were raised by their grandmother, Navajbai R Tata, in a baroque manor called Tata Palace in downtown Bombay (now Mumbai).

Navajbai, a formidable matriarch, instilled a strong set of values in her grandchildren. “She was very indulgent, but also quite strict in terms of discipline.” Mr Tata would recall in one his interviews where he opened up about his growing-up years. “We were very protected and we didn’t have many friends. I had to learn the piano and I played a lot of cricket,” he said.

RATAN TATA – SCHOOL AND COLLEGE YEARS

Mr Tata was schooled at Campion and then at Cathedral and John Connon – both in Mumbai. He then pursued his higher education at Cornell – an Ivy league university in the United States.

At Cornell he studied architecture and structural engineering, and his years in America from 1955 to 1962 influenced Mr Tata tremendously. It was, in multiple ways, the making of him. He travelled across America and was so charmed by California and the West Coast lifestyle that he was ready to settle down in Los Angeles, as per details shared by Tata Sons.

THE JOB AT IBM

When Navajbai’s health deteriorated. Mr Tata was forced to return to a life he thought he had left behind. “I was in Los Angeles and very happily so. And that was where I was when I left before I should have left,” Mr Tata had said in a 2011 interview with CNN.

Once back in India, Mr Tata had a job offer from IBM. JRD Tata wasn’t amused. “He called me one day and he said you can’t be here in India and working for IBM. I was in [the IBM office] and I remember he asked me for a resume, which I didn’t have. The office had electric typewriters so I sat one evening and typed out a resume on their typewriter and gave it to him.”

RELATIONS WITH HIS FATHER

Unlike his eldest son, Naval Tata was a gregarious and outgoing personality, equally at home in the company of kings and commoners. He became a director of Tata Sons, an eminent figure in the International Labour Organisation and a well-regarded sports administrator. Between father and son, though, the difference in temperament showed. “We were close and we were not,” Mr Tata would write in a special publication that celebrated the lives of Jamsetji Tata, JRD Tata and Naval Tata. “I left India when I was 15 for a decade. I would have to say that, as often happens between a father and a son, there was, perhaps, a divergence of views,” Tata sons shared in remembrance of Mr Tata.

“[My father] hated confrontations. He was very good at negotiating settlements… Frequently, that settlement would involve a compromise, and he was all for ‘give and take’. As a person, he gave in a great deal and sometimes, as younger and less mature people, we would fight with him for conceding ground in the quest for a solution, for peace or whatever,” he wrote, as per a remembrance tribute shared by Tata Sons.

THE ARCHITECT

As he has often said, architecture provided him with the equipment to be a perceptive business leader. Pity was that Mr Tata had only a handful of opportunities to use that equipment in the discipline proper, a house he designed for his mother, an abode in Alibaug and his own seafront home in Mumbai being the most prominent of these.

HIS PASSION AND HIS LOVE FOR PETS

Mr Tata had a bit more time for his other desires. Flying and fast cars, both of them, like so much else, born in the Cornell cauldron, were enduring passions. As was scuba diving till his ears could take the pressure no more.

A teetotaller and a nonsmoker, Mr Tata consciously chose to stay single. That seems so much like the man: a lonesome warrior wedded to the Tata cause. The company he kept in his book-lined abode in Mumbai were his German Shepherds, Tito and Tango, and his fondness for them was always boundless.

Too many of these pets of Mr Tata were snatched away by death and the loss took its toll, but he never gave up on the chance to bond with yet another loyal bounder. “My love for dogs as pets is ever strong and will continue for as long as I live,” he had once said.

“There is an indescribable sadness every time one of my pets passes away and I resolve I cannot go through another parting of that nature. And yet, two-three years down the road, my home becomes too empty and too quiet for me to live without them, so there is another dog that gets my affection and attention, just like the last one.”

A TIMELINE OF RATAN TATA’S LIFE AND TIMES

• 1937: Ratan Tata is born to Soonoo and Naval Tata.

• 1955: Leaves for Cornell University (Ithaca, New York, USA) at age 17; goes on to study architecture and engineering over a seven-year period.

• 1962: Awarded bachelor of architecture degree.

• 1962: Joins the Tata group as an assistant in Tata Industries; later in the year, spends six months training at the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (now called Tata Motors).

• 1963: Moves to Tata Iron and Steel Company, or Tisco (now called Tata Steel), at its Jamshedpur facility for a training programme.

• 1965: Is appointed technical officer in Tisco’s engineering division.

• 1969: Works as the Tata group’s resident representative in Australia.

• 1970: Returns to India, joins Tata Consultancy Services, then a software fledgling, for a short stint.

• 1971: Is named director-in-charge of National Radio and Electronics (better known as Nelco), an ailing electronics enterprise.

• 1974: Joins the board of Tata Sons as a director.

• 1975: Completes the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

• 1981: Is appointed Chairman of Tata Industries; begins the process of transforming it into a promoter of high-technology businesses.

• 1983: Drafts the Tata strategic plan.

• 1986-1989: Serves as Chairman of Air India, the national carrier.

• March 25, 1991: Takes over from JRD Tata as Chairman of Tata Sons and Chairman of the Tata trusts.

• 1991: Begins restructuring of the Tata group at a time when the liberalisation of the Indian economy is underway.

• 2000 onwards: The growth and globalisation drive of the Tata group gathers pace under his stewardship and the new millennium sees a string of high-profile Tata acquisitions, among them Tetley, Corus, Jaguar Land Rover, Brunner Mond, General Chemical Industrial Products and Daewoo.

• 2008: Launches the Tata Nano, born of the trailblazing small car project he guided and commanded with zeal and determination.

• 2008: Is awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian honour, by the Government of India.

• December 2012: Steps down as Chairman of Tata Sons after 50 years with the Tata group; is appointed Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons.

• October 9, 2024: Ratan Tata dies at the age of 86.

Ratan Tata, the businessman who inherited one of India’s oldest conglomerates and transformed it through a string of eye-catching deals into a global empire, has died. He was 86.

His death was announced in a statement by Tata Group Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who called Tata “a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation.”

As chairman for more than two decades beginning in 1991, Tata rapidly expanded the 156-year-old business house. It now has operations in more than 100 countries and clocked $165 billion in revenue for the year ended March 2024.

Through more than two dozen listed firms, the conglomerate makes products ranging from coffee and cars to salt and software, runs airlines and introduced India’s first superapp. It has also partnered with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. for a $11 billion chip fabrication plant in India and is said to be planning an iPhone assembly plant.

Under Tata’s stewardship, the conglomerate embarked on an expansion drive that turned the tables on India’s colonial past. It snapped up iconic British assets including steelmaker Corus Group Plc. in 2007 and luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover in 2008. But the financial crisis roiled global markets soon after, damping car sales in developed economies.

“Ratan Tata imagined big and took the empire beyond India,” said Kavil Ramachandran, executive director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Center for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. “While he thought globally, these turned out to be hasty initiatives.”

Tata helmed the group for 21 years in his first stint and retired in 2012. He returned as interim chief for a few months in 2016 following the acrimonious ouster of his successor, Cyrus Mistry.

Tata also found himself at the center of intense battles for control of the conglomerate not once but twice in his career.

The first battle, when he took over as chairman in 1991, pitted him against long-time executives who had been running fiefdoms within the conglomerate under his predecessor. The second, in 2016 – four years after his retirement – was about preserving his legacy as Mistry sought to reduce debt.

Tata won both. In 2016, Mistry was ousted as the chairman of Tata Sons, the group’s main holding firm, in a boardroom coup. The move triggered a bitter courtroom battle that threatened to end a 70-year partnership with Mistry’s family and stamped Tata’s authority on the conglomerate. In 2020, Mistry’s family signaled its intent to sell an 18% stake in Tata Sons.

2008 MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK

The conglomerate faced another crisis in late 2008 when terrorists targeted the group’s flagship hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace, overlooking Mumbai’s Gateway of India, part of a broader attack on the city. About 31 people, including 11 employees, died during the four-day siege. Guests staying at the hotel today are greeted by a memorial with the names of the victims, each of whose families Tata personally visited.

Tata never married and had no children. His death leaves a vacuum at the helm of the powerful Tata Trusts, a collective of charities. These philanthropic trusts own about 66% of Tata Sons, which in turn controls all the major listed Tata firms. Tata Trusts have traditionally been led by a member of the Tata family and wields control over the conglomerate through its holding in Tata Sons.

In his last few years, Tata became a passionate backer of startups including Ola Electric Mobility Ltd., which had a bumper listing in 2024, and Goodfellows, a platform aimed at intergenerational friendships.

The origins of the Tata group date back to 1868, when Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata set up a trading company that later diversified into cotton mills, steel plants and hotels. The Tatas belong to the Parsi Zoroastrian community, which fled religious persecution in Persia centuries ago before finding refuge in western India.

PARENTS DIVORCED

Born in Mumbai on Dec. 28, 1937, Ratan Naval Tata was brought up by his grandmother after his parents, Naval and Sooni Tata, divorced when he was 10. His father had been adopted into the main Tata family at 13 by the daughter-in-law of Jamsetji Tata, founder of the Tata Group.

Usually chauffeured around in a Rolls-Royce, Tata attended school in India’s business capital, Mumbai. As a young student, he learned the piano and played cricket but was afraid of public speaking. His younger brother, Jimmy Tata, stayed out of public life, and little is known about him.

“We faced a fair bit of ragging and personal discomfort because of our parent’s divorce, which in those days wasn’t as common as it is today,” Ratan Tata wrote in a Facebook post in 2020. “But our grandmother taught us to retain dignity at all costs, a value that’s stayed with me until today. It involved walking away from these situations, which otherwise we would have fought back against.”

Tata went to college in the US at Cornell University with plans to study mechanical engineering, as his father wished, but he found his calling elsewhere.

“I had always wanted to be an architect, and at the end of my second year at Cornell, I switched – much to my father’s consternation and upset,” Tata recalled in a 2009 interview with Cornell. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in architecture.

IBM OFFER

Tata wanted to settle down in California, but the poor health of his grandmother prompted him to return to India, where he had a job offer from International Business Machines Corp.

The then-chairman of Tata Sons, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, popularly known as JRD, persuaded him to instead work for the group. The two men were distantly related, parts of different branches of the Tata family tree. Groomed by JRD, the younger Tata started his career at the conglomerate in 1962, undertaking several stints at various units before joining management in the 1970s.

In 1991, when Tata was handpicked for the top job at Tata Sons, the group was mostly focused on India. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., the software maker that would become a cash cow years later, was still in its infancy. The automotive business hadn’t yet started making passenger cars.

The 1990s was also the decade when India started cutting its notorious red tape, discarding parts of a failed Soviet-style planned economy. That meant private sector companies could compete more effectively in sectors that were dominated by government enterprises, paving the way for faster economic growth and unleashing consumption.

As India allowed foreign automakers from Ford Motor Co. to Hyundai Motor Co. to set up factories and tap burgeoning consumer demand, Tata decided to make cars as well. Tata called the first locally built passenger vehicle – rolled out in 1998 and named Indica – “my baby.”

As India’s economy started to boom in the 2000s, Tata became more adventurous. In 2007, he took on debt to pay about $13 billion for Corus, the British steelmaker. The following year, he acquired Jaguar Land Rover, or JLR, from Ford for $2.3 billion. He also bought Tetley Group Plc and the heavy-vehicles unit of South Korea’s Daewoo group.

NEW CHALLENGES

While the acquisition spree helped bring the conglomerate’s geographical footprint to an entirely new level, it also set up a number of challenges.

The 2008 financial crisis triggered a broad slide in commodity prices, while a steel glut fueled by an increase in Chinese exports depressed prices, sparking criticism that Tata had overpaid to acquire Corus. Tata Steel Ltd. has pared its European operations in recent years in the face of slumping demand and high cost structures, and slashed thousands of jobs in the continent.

JLR also hit a rough patch soon after it was acquired by Tata as the financial crisis pummeled demand for luxury cars as well as the company’s ability to access credit. While the Tata Group managed to turn around the marquee car brand within a couple of years, it soon faced other headwinds, from slumping Chinese demand to Brexit. The pandemic and chips shortage affected JLR in recent years.

Tata oversaw another auto-related setback with the failure of the Nano microcar. He wanted to build a cheap automobile that would retail for 100,000 rupees ($1,190.9), targeted at the millions of Indians who typically used motorcycles to get around and transport their families. Production of the Nano was ended in 2018, about 10 years after its unveiling, amid a lack of demand due to early quality and safety concerns.

Perhaps the final business battle Tata fought was his most gratifying.

In 2021, Tata Sons regained control of Air India Ltd., the nation’s flagship carrier, almost 90 years after it was taken over by the state. Heavily indebted and a shadow of its former glory – Salvador Dali once designed ashtrays as gifts for the airline’s guests – the deal meant Tata was able to welcome home to the group an airline originally founded by his mentor, JRD.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ratan Tata, the businessman who inherited one of India’s oldest conglomerates and transformed it through a string of eye-catching deals into a global empire, has died. He was 86.

His death was announced in a statement by Tata Group Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who called Tata “a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation.”

As chairman for more than two decades beginning in 1991, Tata rapidly expanded the 156-year-old business house. It now has operations in more than 100 countries and clocked $165 billion in revenue for the year ended March 2024.

Through more than two dozen listed firms, the conglomerate makes products ranging from coffee and cars to salt and software, runs airlines and introduced India’s first superapp. It has also partnered with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. for a $11 billion chip fabrication plant in India and is said to be planning an iPhone assembly plant.

Under Tata’s stewardship, the conglomerate embarked on an expansion drive that turned the tables on India’s colonial past. It snapped up iconic British assets including steelmaker Corus Group Plc. in 2007 and luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover in 2008. But the financial crisis roiled global markets soon after, damping car sales in developed economies.

“Ratan Tata imagined big and took the empire beyond India,” said Kavil Ramachandran, executive director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Center for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. “While he thought globally, these turned out to be hasty initiatives.”

Tata helmed the group for 21 years in his first stint and retired in 2012. He returned as interim chief for a few months in 2016 following the acrimonious ouster of his successor, Cyrus Mistry.

Tata also found himself at the center of intense battles for control of the conglomerate not once but twice in his career.

The first battle, when he took over as chairman in 1991, pitted him against long-time executives who had been running fiefdoms within the conglomerate under his predecessor. The second, in 2016 – four years after his retirement – was about preserving his legacy as Mistry sought to reduce debt.

Tata won both. In 2016, Mistry was ousted as the chairman of Tata Sons, the group’s main holding firm, in a boardroom coup. The move triggered a bitter courtroom battle that threatened to end a 70-year partnership with Mistry’s family and stamped Tata’s authority on the conglomerate. In 2020, Mistry’s family signaled its intent to sell an 18% stake in Tata Sons.

2008 MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK

The conglomerate faced another crisis in late 2008 when terrorists targeted the group’s flagship hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace, overlooking Mumbai’s Gateway of India, part of a broader attack on the city. About 31 people, including 11 employees, died during the four-day siege. Guests staying at the hotel today are greeted by a memorial with the names of the victims, each of whose families Tata personally visited.

Tata never married and had no children. His death leaves a vacuum at the helm of the powerful Tata Trusts, a collective of charities. These philanthropic trusts own about 66% of Tata Sons, which in turn controls all the major listed Tata firms. Tata Trusts have traditionally been led by a member of the Tata family and wields control over the conglomerate through its holding in Tata Sons.

In his last few years, Tata became a passionate backer of startups including Ola Electric Mobility Ltd., which had a bumper listing in 2024, and Goodfellows, a platform aimed at intergenerational friendships.

The origins of the Tata group date back to 1868, when Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata set up a trading company that later diversified into cotton mills, steel plants and hotels. The Tatas belong to the Parsi Zoroastrian community, which fled religious persecution in Persia centuries ago before finding refuge in western India.

PARENTS DIVORCED

Born in Mumbai on Dec. 28, 1937, Ratan Naval Tata was brought up by his grandmother after his parents, Naval and Sooni Tata, divorced when he was 10. His father had been adopted into the main Tata family at 13 by the daughter-in-law of Jamsetji Tata, founder of the Tata Group.

Usually chauffeured around in a Rolls-Royce, Tata attended school in India’s business capital, Mumbai. As a young student, he learned the piano and played cricket but was afraid of public speaking. His younger brother, Jimmy Tata, stayed out of public life, and little is known about him.

“We faced a fair bit of ragging and personal discomfort because of our parent’s divorce, which in those days wasn’t as common as it is today,” Ratan Tata wrote in a Facebook post in 2020. “But our grandmother taught us to retain dignity at all costs, a value that’s stayed with me until today. It involved walking away from these situations, which otherwise we would have fought back against.”

Tata went to college in the US at Cornell University with plans to study mechanical engineering, as his father wished, but he found his calling elsewhere.

“I had always wanted to be an architect, and at the end of my second year at Cornell, I switched – much to my father’s consternation and upset,” Tata recalled in a 2009 interview with Cornell. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in architecture.

IBM OFFER

Tata wanted to settle down in California, but the poor health of his grandmother prompted him to return to India, where he had a job offer from International Business Machines Corp.

The then-chairman of Tata Sons, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, popularly known as JRD, persuaded him to instead work for the group. The two men were distantly related, parts of different branches of the Tata family tree. Groomed by JRD, the younger Tata started his career at the conglomerate in 1962, undertaking several stints at various units before joining management in the 1970s.

In 1991, when Tata was handpicked for the top job at Tata Sons, the group was mostly focused on India. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., the software maker that would become a cash cow years later, was still in its infancy. The automotive business hadn’t yet started making passenger cars.

The 1990s was also the decade when India started cutting its notorious red tape, discarding parts of a failed Soviet-style planned economy. That meant private sector companies could compete more effectively in sectors that were dominated by government enterprises, paving the way for faster economic growth and unleashing consumption.

As India allowed foreign automakers from Ford Motor Co. to Hyundai Motor Co. to set up factories and tap burgeoning consumer demand, Tata decided to make cars as well. Tata called the first locally built passenger vehicle – rolled out in 1998 and named Indica – “my baby.”

As India’s economy started to boom in the 2000s, Tata became more adventurous. In 2007, he took on debt to pay about $13 billion for Corus, the British steelmaker. The following year, he acquired Jaguar Land Rover, or JLR, from Ford for $2.3 billion. He also bought Tetley Group Plc and the heavy-vehicles unit of South Korea’s Daewoo group.

NEW CHALLENGES

While the acquisition spree helped bring the conglomerate’s geographical footprint to an entirely new level, it also set up a number of challenges.

The 2008 financial crisis triggered a broad slide in commodity prices, while a steel glut fueled by an increase in Chinese exports depressed prices, sparking criticism that Tata had overpaid to acquire Corus. Tata Steel Ltd. has pared its European operations in recent years in the face of slumping demand and high cost structures, and slashed thousands of jobs in the continent.

JLR also hit a rough patch soon after it was acquired by Tata as the financial crisis pummeled demand for luxury cars as well as the company’s ability to access credit. While the Tata Group managed to turn around the marquee car brand within a couple of years, it soon faced other headwinds, from slumping Chinese demand to Brexit. The pandemic and chips shortage affected JLR in recent years.

Tata oversaw another auto-related setback with the failure of the Nano microcar. He wanted to build a cheap automobile that would retail for 100,000 rupees ($1,190.9), targeted at the millions of Indians who typically used motorcycles to get around and transport their families. Production of the Nano was ended in 2018, about 10 years after its unveiling, amid a lack of demand due to early quality and safety concerns.

Perhaps the final business battle Tata fought was his most gratifying.

In 2021, Tata Sons regained control of Air India Ltd., the nation’s flagship carrier, almost 90 years after it was taken over by the state. Heavily indebted and a shadow of its former glory – Salvador Dali once designed ashtrays as gifts for the airline’s guests – the deal meant Tata was able to welcome home to the group an airline originally founded by his mentor, JRD.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ratan Tata, one of India’s most loved industrialists, died today aged 86. He was reportedly admitted to a Mumbai hospital in critical condition. N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons, has confirmed the sad news. 

In a statement, Mr Chandrasekaran said, “It is with a profound sense of loss that we bid farewell to Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation. “

Here is the full statement by Tata Sons: 

“It is with a profound sense of loss that we bid farewell to Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the very fabric of our nation.

For the Tata Group, Mr. Tata was more than a chairperson. To me, he was a mentor, guide and friend. He inspired by example. With an unwavering commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation, the Tata Group under his stewardship expanded its global footprint while always remaining true to its moral compass.

Mr. Tata’s dedication to philanthropy and the development of society has touched the lives of millions. From education to healthcare, his initiatives have left a deep-rooted mark that will benefit generations to come. Reinforcing all of this work was Mr. Tata’s genuine humility in every individual interaction.

On behalf of the entire Tata family, I extend our deepest condolences to his loved ones. His legacy will continue to inspire us as we strive to uphold the principles he so passionately championed.

N Chandrasekaran
Chairman
Tata Sons”