In Case You Missed It: Ratan Tata in The Tribune over the years
THE Mahabharata has a story about the eldest Pandava, Yudhishthira losing his exalted status when he tells a lie during the war. He used to walk two inches above the earth owing to his honesty. But then he became an ordinary man. The story has resonance with the ongoing Tatas imbroglio. The house of Tatas is known not merely for its financial worth of its industrial empire, but also has a higher status mainly because of its focus on ethics and values that go beyond mere profitability. It cannot be denied that the Tatas, unlike most other corporates, has followed a firm policy avoiding bribery and corruption. (Read more)
THE saga of the Tatas versus Cyrus Mistry is getting murkier and murkier. The entry of Nusli Wadia into the fray has created more complexities with a defamation suit adding to the mix. The entire corporate world appears to have taken sides in this latter day ‘Game of Thrones’. Some are clearly in favour of Mistry — Adi Godrej, for instance, used a television interview to commend Cyrus for doing a good job. HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh maintained he was puzzled by Mistry’s ouster given his impressive performance. Others have declared their loyalty to Ratan Tata. (Read more)
Tata tumult in continental drift
There are several factors leading up to Cyrus Mistry's ouster as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of Tata Group — the biggest industry conglomerate in the country. An email from Mistry seems to suggest that the overseas dimensions of the tumult override the internal ones ever since Tata decided to invest in Air Asia and Vistara airlines and the huge loans taken by Tata Steel to acquire Corus (UK). The ouster also came at a time when Mistry and Tata Steel were making progress on a potential merger of its European steel operations and were close to a deal with the UK government about financial support and a restructuring of its pension scheme. (Read more)
Meanwhile, Nano a dream that turned sour
In March 2009, when Ratan Tata launched Nano, the 'people's car', everyone in India was so excited: the manufacturing ups and down from Singur (West Bengal) to Sanand (Gujarat) had gained a separate salience, though. The state of the car today is a sad story. As against an installed capacity of 2.5 lakh cars per annum, the Nano car factory in Sanand produced only 42,561 cars between January 2014 and December 2015. The sales had peaked in 2011-12 when 74,527 cars were sold. (Read more)
When the baton passed on to Ratan Tata from the late JRD Tata in 1991, most observers expected the House of Tatas to be rendered asunder by feuding satraps. Luckily for Ratan, the old man stuck around on the wings of Bombay House long enough to downsize the giants he created during half of century of corporate helmsmanship: Russi Modi (Tata Steel), Darbari Seth (Tata Chemicals), Ajit Kerkar (Taj Group of Hotels) and Sumant Moolgaokar (Telco). (Read more)
After withstanding violent protests and attacks on staff and its small car factory in Singur, West Bengal, for almost two years, Tata Motors’ Chairman Ratan Tata has finally opted to abandon the manufacture of the small car, Nano, in the state. The end result has been that the opposition to the Singur plant, which was on agricultural land acquired by the state government, forced the Tatas to miss the Durga Puja deadline to give the country a car for Rs 1 lakh. Also the project to manufacture Nano has been driven out of Singur, which, in turn, is a serious setback to the state administration. (Read more)
He has led the Tata Group to the very top. It is now the country’s wealthiest, with a market value of about Rs 3.71 lakh crore, higher than that of business houses led by the two Ambani brothers. Now, thanks to a retirement-at-75 rule he introduced earlier, it’s time for him to bid goodbye to the empire that he has taken to such heights. (Read more)
