RATAN Tata should cross his fingers and hope he gets lucky the second time around.
Now that he has chosen another successor, after dumping the previous one, the 79-year-old can go back to his day job for the last three months: fighting the jilted Cyrus Mistry to retain control of the sprawling Indian conglomerate.
Natarajan Chandrasekaran, the heir apparent, may be Tata Group’s first chairman from outside the tightly knit Parsi business community, but he is no stranger to the US$103 billion (RM459.38 billion) empire. He runs the software unit that earns most of its cash. As chairman of Tata Sons, the group’s holding company, Chandra — as he is known — will now be on the other side of the equation, allocating capital to businesses as far-ranging as auto, aviation, hotels, tea and telecommunications.
But that comes a little later. Chandra’s first task will be to assuage shareholders and employees made jumpy by Ratan Tata’s October move to oust Mistry. The sacked chairman, who had just spent four years in the top job, also happened to be the second-biggest owner of the enterprise: Mistry’s family controls more than 18% of the unlisted holding company.
Naturally, he did not go quietly. Ratan Tata succeeded in fending off Mistry’s proxy challenge at the publicly traded companies. But the war is far from over. Tata versus Mistry has now shifted to the courts, where Mistry is trying to prove that members of Tata Trusts, the two-thirds owners of the holding company, were running roughshod over shareholders of listed entities.
While Ratan Tata seeks to reassert the charitable institutions’ legal and moral right to direct the group’s affairs, Chandra has to open the door for a compromise.
One way may be to take Tata Sons public, which would give Mistry an exit option. That is less awkward than trying to find a sovereign fund to buy out a spurned executive who has raised the threat of US$18 billion in potential asset write-downs. Besides, having access to outside equity at the holding company level would improve the group’s financial flexibility, and allow it to invest confidently in newer businesses.
Before that, Chandra has to cut the group’s US$40 billion debt load. Saying adieu to a floundering mobile-service business would make sense. Selling or shuttering the domestic passenger car business — or taking Jaguar Land Rover out of Tata Motors Ltd and listing it in London or Hong Kong — could be another way to unlock value.
Finally, Chandra must do something about Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), of which he is chief executive officer (CEO).
The software company is used by Tata Group as an ATM, but perhaps not for long. The business faces an existential threat in India. Clunky in-house applications at global corporations are giving way to leaner digital technologies. Clients will not pay for 100 techies if, thanks to robotics, only 80 are needed. Incoming US President Donald Trump might choke off work visas for Indian engineers in their most crucial market.
Big, bold acquisitions may have been outside his reach as long as Chandra ran TCS. As group chairman, he will need to demonstrate deal making skills.
In the end, it is probably better that Ratan Tata stuck to a known quantity. A high-profile outsider (names like PepsiCo Inc CEO Indra Nooyi and former Vodafone Group chief Arun Sarin did the rounds) might have boosted the group’s global profile. But the loosely held empire works best when it is assured of long-term stability in its Bombay House headquarters.
Chandra, 53, is eight or nine years younger than Nooyi, Sarin and Ralf Speth, the chief of Jaguar Land Rover. In more ways than one, he is the safe choice. — Bloomberg