Head of the Tata Group empire, Ratan Tata retired on his 75th birthday. Tata, who steered the group for 21 years as chairman, has been credited with transforming it into a streamlined conglomerate of more than 100 companies and earning a global reputation for eye-catching acquisitions of Western firms.
There was no event scheduled to mark the transition but the group last week formally named Cyrus Pallonji Mistry — the first chief from outside the immediate Tata family in its 144-year history — to be the new board chairman.
From luxury cars to steel, Tata is India’s largest group with total combined sales of USD 100B in 2011-12, nearly 60% of which came from business outside India, mainly the United States and Britain.
“Tata led the group with vision, drive, tenacity and skill,” said Pradip Shah, Chairman of IndAsia Fund Advisors, adding that Mistry’s challenge will be “inheriting people and building teams”.
Mistry, 44, chosen as Tata’s successor in November last year, and Tata are both from India’s tight-knit Zoroastrian community of Parsis, and have a family link.
Mistry’s sister is married to Tata’s younger half-brother Noel, who was initially tipped to be the group successor.
Mistry is the son of Irish citizen Pallonji Mistry, whose construction firm Shapoorji Pallonji is the biggest shareholder of Tata Sons. Mistry successfully grew his family’s construction business turnover seven-fold to almost USD 1.5B since he became Managing Director in 1994.
