Ratan Tata’s brother among contenders to oversee $165 billion group

By P R Sanjai

In the coming days, Tata Trusts, a collective of charities that indirectly controls the Tata Group, will have the crucial task of picking Ratan Tata’s successor — someone who will wield massive influence over a $165 billion business empire spread across 100 countries.

Ratan Tata, who created India’s first multinational conglomerate with marquee acquisitions, passed away in Mumbai on Wednesday. At the time of his death, he was the chair for Tata Trusts, which owns 66 per cent of closely held Tata Sons Pvt. and effectively controls the groups largest listed entities.

Ratan Tata never married, had no children, and did not name a successor at Tata Trusts. It’s unclear if he had put in place agreements with board trustees for handling succession.

The lack of steer on the leadership transition at the charities during his lifetime marks a stark contrast to how the patriarch handled succession at Tata Sons in 2012, when he had mentored Cyrus Mistry for about a year before handing over the reins.

Tata Trusts are planning to meet Friday in Mumbai to discuss the succession, according to people familiar with the developments who asked not to be named as the information is private.

His death leaves a leadership vacuum atop these charities that, on one hand, control the coffee-to-cars conglomerate, and on the other, support philanthropic causes from disaster relief to the performing arts. It also leaves ample scope for boardroom power tussles.

The true sway of a Tata Trusts chair became apparent for the first time in 2016 when Ratan Tata led the shock ouster of Mistry as Tata Sons chairman, triggering one of India’s biggest corporate battles.

While one of the vice chairmen — Vijay Singh or Venu Srinivasan — may be appointed as the interim chief, the new chair will need to be voted on by the board trustees at Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and 12 other allied charities.

A dark horse could always emerge but these are the contenders for the top job at Tata Trusts:

Noel Tata

The 67-year-old is the son of Naval Tata, who was also Ratan’s father, and Simone Tata. Already on the boards of the key Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, the patriarch’s half-brother is the frontrunner to succeed him.

Since 2014, he has been the chairman at Trent Ltd., the conglomerate’s massively successful apparel retailer, whose shares have surged more than 6,000 per cent in the past decade.

Trent, which has been expanding store count and workforce even as peers cut jobs, has been one of the most successful Tata companies in recent years. Noel previously helmed Tata International Ltd. from 2010 to 2021, during which the commodity trading firm’s revenue jumped from $500 million to over $3 billion.

He’s also on the boards of several listed Tata firms, including Tata Steel Ltd. and Voltas Ltd. His children — Maya, Neville and Leah — are also trustees of some of the family-linked charities, according to the Tata Trusts website.

Mehli Mistry

Like Noel, Mistry is a board trustee for the two main Tata charities and was seen as a close confidante of Ratan Tata. Along with Srinivasan and Singh, Mistry is part of the executive committee that oversees the functioning of Tata Trusts.

He is a director of the Meher Pallonji Group, which has business interests in industrial painting, dredging, stevedoring, logistics solutions, shipping, finance and automobile dealerships among others.

Besides having long-running business relations with the Tata Group, Mistry is the estranged first cousin of Cyrus Mistry, according to a local media report.

Darius Khambata

A senior lawyer who advised Ratan Tata on succession matters, Khambata is also a board trustee. He continues to actively practice law in top Indian courts. He recently represented the Indian markets regulator in a legal dispute and Akasa Air’s pilots in a dispute over job contracts.

Khambata returned to Tata Trusts after resigning from the charities in 2016, citing a rising number of professional commitments. His exit came soon after the boardroom coup led by Ratan Tata against Cyrus Mistry that went on to become a years-long courtroom battle between the Tata Group and the Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

Vijay Singh/Venu Srinivasan

Singh and Srinivasan are the vice chairmen for both the main Tata Trusts and worked alongside Ratan Tata in running the charities. Singh is a a former defense ministry bureaucrat while Srinivasan is the chairman emeritus of Sundaram Clayton Ltd. and TVS Motor Co.

Appointing either of these two, however, would be a break from tradition since they are not from the Parsi Zoroastrian community.

Tata Trusts have so far been helmed only by Parsis, the descendants of a group that fled religious persecution in Persia centuries ago and found refuge in western India.