10/10/2024
Indian tycoon Ratan Tata dies aged 86
Oct 10 2024
By Alex Boyd
BBC News
Indian tycoon Ratan Tata has died aged 86, says the Tata Group, the conglomerate he led for more than two decades.
Tata was one of India's most internationally recognised business leaders.
The Tata Group is one of India's largest companies, with annual revenues in excess of $100bn (£76.5bn).
In a statement announcing Tata's death, the current chairman of Tata Sons described him as a "truly uncommon leader".
Natarajan Chandrasekaran added: "On behalf of the entire Tata family, I extend our deepest condolences to his loved ones.
"His legacy will continue to inspire us as we strive to uphold the principles he so passionately championed."
During his tenure as chairman of the Tata Group, the conglomerate made several high-profile acquisitions, including the takeover of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus, UK-based car brands Jaguar and Land Rover, and Tetley, the world's second-largest tea company.
UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in tribute that Tata was a "titan of the business world" who "played a huge role in shaping British industry".
A profile published in the Economist magazine in 2011 called Tata a "titan", crediting him with transforming the family group into "a global powerhouse".
"He owns less than 1% of the group that bears his family name. But he is a titan nonetheless: the most powerful businessman in India and one of the most influential in the world," the magazine said.
In 2012, he retired as chairman of the group and was appointed chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, the group's holding company.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed Tata as a "visionary business leader, a compassionate soul and an extraordinary human being".
Paying tribute on X, formerly known as Twitter, Modi recounted "countless interactions" with Tata and said he was "extremely pained" by his death.
Tata was born in a traditional Parsi family in 1937. He studied architecture and structural engineering at Cornell University in the US.
In 1962, he joined Tata Industries - the promoter company of the group - as an assistant and spent six months training at a company plant in Jamshedpur.
From here, he went on to work at the Tata Iron and Steel Company (now Tata Steel), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and National Radio and Electronics (Nelco).
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OBITUARY: Ratan Tata, the 'modest' Indian tycoon
* Tata led a "salt-to-software" conglomerate of more than 100 companies
Ratan Tata, who has died aged 86, was one of India's most internationally recognised business leaders.
The tycoon led the Tata Group - known as a "salt-to-software" conglomerate of more than 100 companies, employing some 660,000 people - for more than two decades. Its annual revenues are in excess of $100bn (£76.5bn).
Founded by Jamsetji Tata, a pioneer of Indian business, the 155-year-old Tata Group straddles a business empire ranging from Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel to aviation and salt pans.
The ethos of the company "yokes capitalism to philanthropy, by doing business in ways that make the lives of others better", according to Peter Casey, author of The Story of Tata, an authorised book on the group.
Tata Sons, the holding company of the group, has a "number of companies that includes privately held and publicly traded companies, yet they are in essence all owned by a philanthropic trust", he explains.
Ratan Tata was born in 1937 in a traditional family of Parsis - a highly educated and prosperous community that traces its ancestry to Zoroastrian refugees in India. His parents separated in the 1940s.
Tata went to college in the US, where he got a degree in architecture at Cornell University. During his seven-year-long stay, he learned to drive cars and fly. He had some harrowing experiences: he once lost an engine while flying a helicopter in college and twice lost the single engine in his plane. "So I had to glide in," he told an interviewer. Later, he would often fly his company's business jet.
He returned to India in 1962 when his grandmother Lady Navajbai fell ill and called for him. It was then that JRD Tata - a relative from a different branch of the family - asked him to join the Tata Group. "He [JRD Tata] was my greatest mentor... he was like a father and a brother to me - and not enough has been said about that," Tata told an interviewer.
Ratan Tata was sent to a company steel plant in Jamshedpur in eastern India where he spent a couple of years on the factory floor before becoming the technical assistant to the manager. In the early 70s, he took over two ailing group firms, one making radios and TVs and the other textiles. He managed to turn around the first, and had mixed results with the textile company.
In 1991, JRD Tata, who had led the group for over half a century, appointed Ratan Tata as his successor over senior company aspirants for that position. "If you were to find the publications of that time, the criticism was personal - JRD got clubbed with nepotism and I was branded as the wrong choice," Ratan Tata later said.
Peter Casey writes that under Ratan Tata's leadership, a "great but rather stodgy Indian manufacturer began emerging as a global brand with great emphasis on consumer goods".
But the journey was a mixed one.
During his tenure the group made many bold acquisitions, among them the takeover of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus and UK-based car brands Jaguar and Land Rover. Some of those decisions paid off, while others - including a failed telecom venture - have cost the company a lot of money.
A high point came in 2000, when Tata bought Tetley and became the world's second-largest tea company. The deal was the largest takeover of an international brand by an Indian company.
A few years later, a visiting journalist from a UK-based newspaper asked Tata whether he liked the irony of an Indian company buying a leading British brand. "Tata is too shrewd and too shy to be caught gloating about his successes like some territory-grabbing East India Company nabob," the journalist later wrote.
Tata's foray into building a safe, affordable car turned out to be a disappointment. It was launched amid great fanfare in 2009 as a compact with the base model costing just 100,000 rupees ($1,222; £982). But after the initial success and euphoria, the brand began to lose out to other manufacturers due to issues with production and marketing.
Tata later said it was a "huge mistake to brand Nano as the world's cheapest car. People don't want to be seen driving the world's cheapest car!"
Ratan Tata was a licensed pilot who often flew his company business jet.
His resilience was also tested during the Mumbai terror attacks of 26 November, 2008. Tata's marquee Taj Mahal Palace was one of the two luxury hotels that was attacked, along with a train station, a hospital, a Jewish cultural centre, and some other targets in Mumbai.
Thirty-three of the 166 people who died in the 60-hour siege were at the Taj. This included 11 hotel employees, a third of the hotel's total casualties. Tata pledged to look after the families of employees who were killed or injured, and paid the relatives of those killed the salaries they would have earned for the rest of their lives. He also spent more than $1bn to restore the damaged hotel within 21 months.
Towards the end of his career, Tata found himself embroiled in an unsavoury controversy. In October 2016 he returned to Tata Sons as interim chairman for a few months after the previous incumbent, Cyrus Mistry, was ousted, sparking a bitter management feud (Mistry died in a car crash in September 2022). The role was eventually given to Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who was formerly the chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services, India's most valuable company with a market capitalisation of $67bn.
Peter Casey described Tata as a "modest, reserved and even shy man". He found a "stately calm" about him and a "fierce discipline", which included preparing a handwritten to-do list every day. He also described himself as a "bit of an optimist".
Tata was also a modest and reflective businessman. After the police were called in to end a strike that crippled operations at one of his firm's factories in Pune in 1989, Tata told journalists: "Perhaps we took our workers for granted. We assumed that we were doing all that we could do for them, when probably we were not."
In 2009, Tata spoke at a school alumni function about his dream for his country, "where every Indian has an equal opportunity to shine on merit".
"In a country like ours," he said, "you have to try and lead by example, not flaunt your wealth and prominence."
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In 1991, JRD Tata, who had led the group for over half a century, appointed Ratan Tata as his successor. "He [JRD Tata] was my greatest mentor... he was like a father and a brother to me - and not enough has been said about that," Tata later told an interviewer.
In 2008, the Indian government awarded him the Padma Vibhushan, the country's second-highest civilian honour.
Peter Casey, author of The Story of Tata, described Tata as a "modest, reserved and even shy man" who had a "stately calm" about him and a "fierce discipline".
He was drawn into a rare unsavoury controversy in 2016, when his successor as Tata Sons chairman, Cyrus Mistry, was ousted from the role, sparking a bitter management feud. Mistry died in a car crash in 2022.
The business tycoon also had a lighter side to him. His love for fast cars and planes was well-known - the Tata group website describes these as some of his "enduring passions".
Tata was also a scuba diving enthusiast, a hobby that fizzled with age "as his ears could take the pressure no more".
He was also a dog lover and fondly remembered the many pets who gave him company over the decades.
"My love for dogs as pets is ever strong and will continue for as long as I live," the industrialist said in a 2021 interview.
"There is an indescribable sadness every time one of my pets passes away and I resolve I cannot go through another parting of that nature. And yet, two-three years down the road, my home becomes too empty and too quiet for me to live without them, so there is another dog that gets my affection and attention, just like the last one," he said.
He was also often praised for his simplicity. In 2022, a video of him travelling in a Nano car - one of the world's cheapest cars, now mostly remembered as one of Tata's failed dreams - went viral on social media.
His death was announced by the Tata Group, the multi-billion-dollar conglomerate he led for more than two decades.
