Ratan Tata, the businessman who inherited one of India’s oldest business conglomerates and transformed it through a series of eye-catching deals into a global empire, has died. He was 86 years old.
His death was announced in a statement by Tata Group Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who described Tata as “a truly extraordinary leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group but also the fabric of our nation”.
As Chairman for more than two decades starting in 1991, Tata rapidly expanded the 156-year-old business house. It now has operations in over 100 countries and is registered $165 billion revenue For the year ending March 2024.
With more than two dozen listed companies, the group makes products ranging from coffee, cars, salt and software, runs airlines, and brings India to India. The first super app. It has also partnered with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp to set up an $11 billion chip manufacturing plant in India and is said to be set up. planning iPhone assembly plant.
Under Tata’s supervision, the group embarked on an expansion drive that turned the tables on India’s colonial past. It has acquired iconic British assets including steelmaker Corus Group Plc. in 2007, and luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover in 2008. But the financial crisis hit global markets soon after, dampening car sales in advanced economies.
“Ratan Tata had a dream of expanding and taking the empire beyond India,” said Kavil Ramachandran, CEO of the company. Thomas Schmidheiny Center for Family Enterprises in Indian School of Business In Hyderabad. “While he was thinking globally, these initiatives turned out to be hasty.”
Tata led the group for 21 years in his first stint and retired in 2012 He returned as interim president For a few months in 2016 after the harsh ouster of his successor, Cyrus Mistry.
Tata also found himself in a position Intense battles To dominate the bloc not once but twice in his career.
The first fight, when he took over as chairman in 1991, pitted him against long-time executives who had run fiefdoms within the group 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 chairman of Tata Sons, the group’s main holding company, in a boardroom coup. The move sparked a bitter courtroom battle that threatened to end a 70-year partnership with the Mistry family and imposed Tata’s power over the group. In 2020, the Mistry family He pointed out Its intention to sell 18% stake in Tata Sons.
Terrorist attack
The group faced another crisis in late 2008 when terrorists targeted the group’s main hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace, overlooking India Gate in Mumbai, which is 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 welcomed by a memorial bearing the names of the victims whose families Tata personally visited.
Tata never married and had no children. His death leaves a void in the head of the powerful Tata boxesa group of charitable organizations. These charitable funds Owns about 66% A subsidiary of Tata, which in turn controls all major listed Tata companies. Tata Trusts have traditionally been led by a member of the Tata family and exercise control of the conglomerate through their holding in Tata Sons.
In his last few years, Tata became an enthusiastic supporter of startups including Ola Electric Mobility Ltd. Bumper menu In 2024, and Good guysa platform aimed at intergenerational friendships.
Tata Group Assets It dates back To 1868, when Jamsetji Nusrawangi Tata He established a trading company whose business later diversified to include cotton mills, steel mills, 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 are divorced
Ratan Naval Tata was born in Mumbai on December 28, 1937, and was raised by his grandmother after his parents. Navy And Sonny Tata, divorced when he was ten years old. His father was adopted into the main Tata family when he was thirteen by the daughter-in-law of Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group.
Tata usually traveled in a Rolls Royce and attended school in India’s commercial capital, Mumbai. As a young student, he learned to play the piano and play cricket, but was afraid of public speaking. and his younger brother, Jimmy Tata. I stayed out of public lifeLittle is known about him.
“We faced a fair amount of discomfort and personal discomfort due to our parents’ divorce, which was not as common in those days as it is today,” Ratan Tata wrote in an article. Share Facebook In 2020. “But our grandmother taught us to maintain our dignity at all costs, a value that has stayed with me until today. “It involved moving away from these positions that we would otherwise have resisted.”
Tata went to college in the United States At Cornell University He was planning to study mechanical engineering as his father wanted, 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 changed that, much to my father’s consternation and annoyance,” Tata recalled in his letter. Interview 2009 With Cornell. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in architecture.
IBM presentation
Tata wanted to settle in California, but his grandmother’s poor health forced him to return to India, where he got a job offer from International Business Machines Corp.
Chairman of Tata Sons at the time, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tataknown as JRD, convinced him to work for the group instead. The two men were distantly related, and parts of different branches of the Tata family tree. The younger Tata, groomed by JRD, began his career at the group in 1962, and did several stints in various units before joining management in the 1970s.
In 1991, when Tata was selected for the top job at Tata Sons, the group was mostly focused on India. Tata Consultancy Services Limited, the software maker that would become a cash cow years later, was still in its infancy. The automobile industry had not yet begun manufacturing passenger cars.
The 1990s was also the decade in which India began to cut back on its notorious red tape and shed parts of its failed Soviet-style planned economy. This means that private sector companies can compete more effectively in sectors dominated by state companies, paving the way for faster economic growth and unleashing consumption.
With India allowing foreign automakers, from Ford Motor Co. to Hyundai Motor Co., to set up factories and capitalize on booming consumer demand, Tata decided to make cars, too. Tata called its first indigenously made passenger car – introduced in 1998 and called the Indica – “my baby”.
As the Indian economy began to boom in the 2000s, Tata became more adventurous. In 2007, he took on debt to pay about $13 billion to Corus, the British steelmaker. The following year, it acquired Jaguar Land Rover, or JLR, from Ford for $2.3 billion. He also bought Tetley Group Plc and the heavy vehicle unit of South Korea’s Daewoo Group.
New challenges
While the acquisition spree has helped take the group’s geographic footprint to a whole new level, it has also presented a number of challenges.
The 2008 financial crisis caused a widespread decline in commodity prices, while a steel glut fueled by rising Chinese exports depressed prices, sparking criticism that Tata had overpaid for the Corus acquisition. Tata Steel Ltd has scaled back its European operations in recent years in the face of falling demand and rising cost structures. Thousands were cut off of jobs on the continent.
JLR also hit a rough patch shortly after its acquisition by Tata, as the financial crisis depressed demand for luxury cars as well as the company’s ability to obtain credit. While the Tata group managed to turn around its marquee car brand within two years, it quickly faced other headwinds, from declining Chinese demand to Brexit. The epidemic and Chip shortage It has affected JLR in recent years.
Tata has overseen another automotive setback with the failure of the Nano minivan. He wanted to make an inexpensive car that could retail for 100,000 rupees ($1,190.9), targeting millions of Indians who typically use motorcycles to commute and transport their families. Production of the Nano was halted in 2018, about 10 years after its unveiling, amid lack of demand due to early quality and safety concerns.
Tata’s latest business battle was perhaps his most satisfying.
In 2021, Tata Sons collect Air India Limited, the country’s leading airline, has been closed nearly 90 years after its state takeover. The deal was debt-laden and a shadow of its former glory – with Salvador Dali designing ashtrays as gifts for the airline’s guests – meaning Tata was able to welcome the airline originally founded by his mentor JRD into the group.
Welcome back, Air India 🛬🏠 pic.twitter.com/euIREDIzkV
-Ratan N. Tata (@RNTAta2000) October 8, 2021