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Tata Trust has re-appointed Venu Srinivasan as life trustee. The trustees of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) and Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) took this decision unanimously. Srinivasan’s tenure was ending on October 23.
This decision has come at a time when there is a lot of tussle going on within the organizations associated with Tata and the group seems divided into two parts. In this, one side is with Noel Tata and the other is with the people following former chairman Ratan Tata.
Srinivasan’s lifetime appointment means that his tenure will never expire. This decision comes after the lifetime appointment of Trustee and Chairman Noel Tata in January 2025. SDTT and SRTT together hold 52% stake in Tata Sons.
Venu’s re-appointment comes after a resolution passed unanimously by the Trusts on October 17, 2024, which stated that ‘on the expiry of the tenure of a Trustee, that Trustee will be re-appointed for life by the concerned Trust.’ According to the same rule, the re-appointment of the second trustee Mehli Mistry is also going to happen in the next few days.
Decisions taken in the meeting on 17 October 2024
- All trustees are ‘equally responsible’ and serve with responsibilities assigned to them by Ratan N Tata.
- If any Trustee votes against the re-appointment of another Trustee, it will be considered a breach of the Terms.
- The directors nominated by the trusts on the board of Tata Sons will be reviewed after they attain the age of 75 years.
- Under this proposal, the decision was taken to nominate Noel Tata on the board of Tata Sons.
- The directors nominated by the trusts on the board of Tata Sons will be reviewed after they attain the age of 75 years.
- Charities decided to nominate Noel Tata to the board of Tata Sons.
- At the meeting, Noel took over as chairman of the trusts after the death of his elder half brother Ratan Tata on October 9, 2024.
Controversy in Tata Group, government had to intervene
After the death of Ratan Tata in October 2024, his half brother Noel Tata was made the chairman of Tata Trust. In November 2024, Noel was also included in the board of Tata Sons. But this decision, as claimed in many media reports, was not unanimous within the Trust.
This led to a direct division of board seats among the Tata Trusts controlling Tata Sons. One faction is with board member Noel Tata, while the other faction is with Mehli Mistry. Mistry has connections to the Shapoorji Pallonji family, which holds 18.37% stake in Tata Sons.
Amid the controversy over Tata Sons’ board seat, on October 7, the senior leadership held a 45-minute meeting at Home Minister Amit Shah’s house. According to a report, the government said that the domestic dispute should be resolved quickly, so that the company is not affected.
The meeting was attended by Home Minister Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman along with Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata, Vice-Chairman Venu Srinivasan, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran and Trustee Darius Khambatta.
Understand the entire controversy of Tata Group in 5 points
- This whole fight started from the meeting of Tata Trusts held on 11th September. In this, there was to be a discussion on re-appointing former Defense Secretary Vijay Singh as nominee director on the board of Tata Sons. But Singh did not come to the meeting. Tata Trusts has a total of seven trustees including Singh.
- After the death of former Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata on October 9, 2024, the trusts had decided that nominee directors on the Tata Sons board will have to be re-appointed every year after the age of 75 years. 77 year old Singh was playing this role since 2012.
- This resolution of re-appointment was put forward by Noel Tata and Venu Srinivasan. But the remaining four people – Mehli Mistry, Pramit Jhaveri, Jahangir HC Jahangir and Darius Khambata flatly refused. Since these four were in majority, the resolution was cancelled.
- After this, these trustees tried to propose Mehli Mistry as a nominee on the Tata Sons board. But Noel Tata and Srinivasan stopped it. As soon as the meeting ended, Singh himself resigned from the Tata Sons board.
- The four trustees led by Mehli Mistry are associated with the Shapoorji Pallonji family. This family has 18.37% stake in Tata Sons. According to PTI, Mehli has expressed displeasure at being kept out of important decisions. The center of the dispute is the directorship positions in Tata Sons.
Angry trustee said – Board is taking decisions without debate
According to a report by Money Control, a major reason for the increasing conflict between the trustees of Tata Trusts is the Rs 1,000 crore funding plan of Tata International Limited. Noel Tata has been running this company since 2010. Tata International Limited operates in 27 countries.
Trustees Pramit Jhaveri, Mehli Mistry, Jahangir H.C. Jahangir and Darius Khambatta raised questions about the way the funding was pushed at the September 11 Tata Trust board meeting. The issue was not whether TIL needed funds or not, but how the decision was taken.
The trustees feel that such a huge capital commitment should have been thoroughly debated. The trustees also mentioned Tata Motors’ purchase of Iveco Group’s non-defense commercial vehicle business in July. Said that in that transaction also he was informed at the late stage.
Tata Sons holds 66% stake in Tata Group.
Tata Group was founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1868. It is India’s largest multinational company, its 30 companies in 10 different businesses do business in more than 100 countries of the world.
Tata Sons is the principal investment holding and promoter of Tata companies. 66% of the equity share capital of Tata Sons is held by Tata’s Charitable Trust, which works for education, health, art and culture and livelihood generation.
The total revenue of all Tata Group companies in 2023-24 was Rs 13.86 lakh crore. It provides employment to more than 10 lakh people. Its products are included in our lives from morning to evening. The company provides everything from tea leaves to watches, cars and entertainment services.
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