Noel Tata reportedly appointed chairman of Tata Trusts

Mumbai – Mr Noel Tata was appointed on Oct 11 as chairman of Indian conglomerate Tata Group’s philanthropic arm Tata Trusts, the CNBC TV18 channel reported.

He succeeds his half-brother Ratan Tata, who died this week aged 86.

Mr Noel Tata’s appointment is of significance as Tata Trusts owns 66 per cent of Tata Sons, the holding company of various firms under the Tata brand, which is more than 150 years old.

The 67-year-old already serves as a trustee on the board of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. He is also the chairman of Tata Trent and vice-chairman of Tata Steel.

Mr Noel Tata was chairman of the autos to steel conglomerate for over 20 years, and was responsible for acquisitions of foreign companies during his tenure.

Since 2014, he has been the chairman of Trent, the conglomerate’s massively successful apparel retailer, whose shares have surged more than 6,000 per cent in the past decade and has been a runaway success in the domestic fast fashion sector.

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. Mr Noel Tata previously helmed Tata International from 2010 to 2021, during which the commodity trading firm’s revenue jumped from US$500 million (S$653 million) to over US$3 billion.

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

Tata Trusts did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Mr Ratan Tata, the stalwart businessman who created India’s first multinational conglomerate with marquee acquisitions, died in Mumbai on Oct 9. At the time of his death, he was the chairman of Tata Trusts.

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

The radio silence on the leadership transition was critiqued by media as a stark contrast to how the patriarch handled succession at Tata Sons in 2012, when he had mentored Mr Cyrus Mistry for about a year before handing over the reins. 

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

The other contenders for the top job at Tata Trusts were: 

Mehli Mistry

Like Mr Noel Tata, Mr Mehli Mistry is a board trustee for the two main Tata charities and was seen as a close confidant of Mr Ratan Tata. Mr Mehli Mistry is part of the executive committee that oversees the functioning of Tata Trusts.

He is a director of the Meher Pallonji Group that has business interests in industrial painting, dredging, stevedoring, logistics solutions, shipping, finance and motor dealerships, among other things. 

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

Darius Khambata

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

Mr 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 Mr Ratan Tata against Mr 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

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

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

Tata Trusts has 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. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG