Wsrtjtyk

Tata

Type	Public
Industry	Conglomerate
Founded	1868; 151 years ago (1868)
Founder	Jamsetji Tata
Headquarters	Bombay House, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Natarajan Chandrasekaran (Chairman)[1] Saurabh Agarwal (CFO)[2]
Products	Airlines Automotive Chemicals Defense FMCG Electric Utility Finance Home Appliances Healthcare Hospitality IT Services Locomotives Retail Real estate Steel E-Commerce Telecommunications
Revenue	US$110.7 billion[3] (2018)
Owner	Tata Sons
Number of employees	702,454 (2018)[3]
Subsidiaries	List of subsidiaries
Website	www.tata.com

Tata Group (/ˈtɑːtɑː/) is an Indian multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata, the company gained international recognition after purchasing several global companies. One of India's largest conglomerates, Tata Group is owned by Tata Sons.^[4][5]

Each Tata company operates independently under the guidance and supervision of its own board of directors and shareholders. Significant Tata companies and subsidiaries include Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Advanced Systems Limited, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Coffee, Tata Teleservices, Titan, Voltas, Tata Cliq, Tata Communications, and The Indian Hotels Company Limited (Taj Hotels).

History

1868-1904

At the age of 29, Jamsetji Tata worked in his father's company. In 1870 with Rs.21,000 capital, he found a trading company. Further he bought a bankrupt oil mill at Chinchpokli and converted it into a cotton mill, under the name Alexandra Mill which he sold in profit after 2 years. In 1874, he set up another cotton mill at Nagpur named as Empress Mill. He dreamed of achieving 4 goals, setting up an iron and steel company, an unique hotel, a world-class learning institution and a hydro-electric plant. During his lifetime, in 1903, the Taj Mahal Hotel at Colaba waterfront was opened making it the first hotel with electricity in India.

1904-1938

After Jamsetji's death, his older son Dorabji Tata became the Chairman in 1904. Sir Dorabji established the Tata Iron and Steel company , now known as Tata Steel in 1907. Marking the group's global ambitions, Tata Limited opened its first overseas office in London. Following the founder's goals, Western India's first hydro plant was brought to life, giving birth to Tata Power. Yet another dream, Indian Institute of Science was established with the first batch admitted in 1911.

1938-1991

JRD Tata was made Chairman of Tata Group in 1938. Under his chairmanship, the assets of the Tata Group grew from US$100 million to over US$5 billion. He started with 14 enterprises under his leadership and half a century later on 26 July 1988, when he left, Tata Sons was a conglomerate of 95 enterprises which they either started or in which they had controlling interest.

In 1932, JRD founded an airline, known as Tata Air Services (later renamed Tata Airlines). In 1953, the Government of India passed the Air Corporations Act and purchased a majority stake in the carrier from Tata Sons, though JRD Tata would continue as Chairman till 1977.

In 1945, Tata Motors was founded, first focused on locomotives. In 1954, it entered the commercial vehicle market after forming a joint venture with Daimler-Benz. In 1968, Tata Consultancy Services was founded.

1991-present

In 1991, Ratan Tata was made Chairman of Tata Group. This was also the year of economic liberalization in India, opening up the market to foreign competitors. During this time, Tata Group began to acquire a number of companies, including Tetley (2000), Corus Group (2007), and Jaguar and Land Rover (2008). In 2017, Natarajan Chandrasekaran was appointed chairman.

Chairman

The Chairman of Tata Sons is usually the Chairman of the Tata Group.

• 
  Jamsetji Tata (1868–1904)


• 
  Sir Dorab Tata (1904–1932)


• 
  Nowroji Saklatwala (1932–1938)


• 
  JRD Tata (1938–1991)


• 
  Ratan Tata (1991–2012)


• 
  Cyrus Mistry (2012–2016)


• Ratan Tata (2016-2017)


• 
  Natarajan Chandrasekaran (2017–present)^[6]
  

Subsidiaries

.mw-parser-output .tmulti .thumbinner{display:flex;flex-direction:column}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .trow{display:flex;flex-direction:row;clear:left;flex-wrap:wrap;width:100%;box-sizing:border-box}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .tsingle{margin:1px;float:left}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .theader{clear:both;font-weight:bold;text-align:center;align-self:center;background-color:transparent;width:100%}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .thumbcaption{text-align:left;background-color:transparent}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .text-align-left{text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .text-align-right{text-align:right}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .text-align-center{text-align:center}@media all and (max-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .tmulti .thumbinner{width:100%!important;box-sizing:border-box;max-width:none!important;align-items:center}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .trow{justify-content:center}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .tsingle{float:none!important;max-width:100%!important;box-sizing:border-box;text-align:center}.mw-parser-output .tmulti .thumbcaption{text-align:center}}

This section lists the Tata companies and details their business:

Chemicals

Consumer products

Energy

Engineering

Information systems and communications

Services

Steel

[Acquisitions]:

• February 2000 – Tetley Tea Company, $407 million^[7]
  


• March 2004 – Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company, $102 million


• August 2004 – NatSteel's Steel business, $292 million


• November 2004 – Tyco Global Network, $130 million


• July 2005 – Teleglobe International Holdings, $239 million


• October 2005 – Good Earth Corporation


• December 2005 – Millennium Steel, Thailand, $165 million


• December 2005 – Brunner Mond Chemicals, $10 million


• June 2006 – Eight O'Clock Coffee, $220 million


• November 2006 – Ritz Carlton Boston, $170 million


• January 2007 – Corus Group, $12 billion^[8]
  


• March 2007 – PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) (Bumi Resources), $1.1 billion


• April 2007 – Campton Place Hotel, San Francisco, $60 million


• January 2008 – Imacid Chemical Company, Morocco^[9]
  


• February 2008 – General Chemical Industrial Products, $1 billion


• March 2008 – Jaguar Cars and Land Rover, $2.3 billion


• March 2008 – Serviplem SA, Spain
  


• April 2008 – Comoplesa Lebrero SA, Spain


• May 2008 – Piaggio Aero Industries S.p.A., Italy - Sold Off in 2015
  


• June 2008 – China Enterprise Communications, China
  


• October 2008 – Miljo Grenland / Innovasjon, Norway
  


• April 2010 - Hewitt Robins International, United Kingdom
  


• July 2013 - Alti SA, France
  


• December 2014 - Energy Products Limited, India
  


• June 2016 - Welspun Renewables Energy, India
  


• May 2018 - Bhushan Steel Limited, India
  

Philanthropy

Tata Group has helped establish and finance numerous research, educational and cultural institutes in India,^[10][11] and received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.^[12] Some of the institutes established by the Tata Group are:

• 
  The Energy and Resources Institute (formerly known as Tata Energy and Research Institute), a non-governmental research institute


• The JRD Tata Ecotechnology Centre


• National Centre for Performing Arts


• Tata Center for Technology & Design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology^[13]
  


• Tata Centre for Technology & Design at IIT Bombay^[14]
  


• Tata Cricket Academy


• Tata Football Academy


• Tata Institute of Social Sciences


• Tata Management Training Centre


• Tata Medical Center, inaugurated on 16 May 2011 by Ratan Tata^[15]
  


• Tata Memorial Hospital


• Tata Cancer Hospital


• Tata Trusts, a group of philanthropic organisations run by the head of the business conglomerate Tata Sons

In 2008, Tata Group donated $50 million USD to Cornell University for "agricultural and nutrition programs in India and for the education of Indian students at Cornell."^[16]

In 2010, Tata Group donated ₹ 2.20 billion ($50 million) to the Harvard Business School (HBS) to build an academic and a residential building for executive education programmes on the institute's campus in Boston, Massachusetts, now Tata Hall,^[17] which is the largest endowment received by HBS from an international donor.

In 2017, Tata Football Academy won the bid to form the Jamshedpur FC, a football club based on Jamshedpur of Jharkhand in the 4th edition of the Indian Super League.

Controversies and criticisms

The Tata Group has also attracted some controversy during its more than 150 years in operation, notably:

Munnar, Kerala

The Kerala Government filed an affidavit in the high court alleging that Tata Tea had "grabbed" forest land of 3,000 acres (12 km²) at Munnar. The Tatas provided that they possessed 58,741.82 acres (237.7197 km²) of land, which they are allowed to retain under the Kannan Devan Hill (Resumption of Lands) Act, 1971, and there was a shortage of 278.23 hectares in that. The Chief Minister of Kerala V.S. Achuthanandan, who vowed to evict all on government land in Munnar, formed a special squad for the Munnar land takeover mission and started acquiring back properties. However, the mission was aborted due to both influential land-holders and opposition from Achuthanandan's own party.^[19]

Kalinganagar, Odisha

On 2 January 2006, Kalinganagar, Odisha villagers protested the construction of a compound wall on land historically owned by them, for a Tata steel plant. Police opened fire at a crowd after a policeman was gruesomely killed by the mob.^[20]

Supplies to Burma's military regime

In December 2006, Myanmar's chief of general staff, General Thura Shwe Mann, visited the Tata Motors plant in Pune.^[21] In 2009, TATA Motors announced that it would manufacture trucks in Myanmar. Tata Motors reported that these contracts to supply hardware and automobiles to Burma's military were subsequently criticism by human rights activists.^[22][23]

Singur land acquisition

The Singur controversy^[24] in West Bengal was a series of protests by locals and political parties over the forced acquisition, eviction, and inadequate compensation to those farmers displaced for the Tata Nano plant, during which Mamata Banerjee's party was widely criticised as acting for political gain. Despite the support of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) state government, Tata eventually pulled the project out of West Bengal, citing safety concerns. Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, made land available for the Nano project.^[25]

On Aug 31, 2016, in a historic judgement, the Honorable Supreme Court of India set aside the land acquisition by the West Bengal Government in 2006 that had facilitated Tata Motors' Nano plant, stating that the West Bengal government had not taken possession of the land legally, and were now required to repossess and return it to local farmers within 12 weeks without compensation.^[26]

Dhamra Port, Odisha

The Port of Dhamara has received significant coverage, sparking controversy in India, and in Tata's emerging global markets.^[27] The Dhamra port, an equal joint venture between Tata Steel and Larsen & Toubro, has been criticised for its proximity to the Gahirmatha Sanctuary and Bhitarkanika National Park by Indian and international organisations, including Greenpeace; Gahirmatha Beach is one of the world's largest mass nesting sites for the Olive Ridley Turtle, and India's second largest mangrove forest, Bhitarkanika, is a designated Ramsar site, and critics claimed that the port could disrupt mass nesting at Gahirmtha beaches as well as the ecology of the Bitharkanika mangrove forest.^[28][29]
TATA Steel employed mitigation measures set by the project's official advisor, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the company pledging to "adopt all its recommendations without exception" when conservation organisations asserted that a thorough environmental impact analysis had not been done for the project, which had undergone changes in size and specifications since it was first proposed.^[30]

Proposed soda extraction plant in Tanzania

In 2007, Tata Group joined forces with a Tanzanian company to build a soda ash extraction plant in Tanzania.^[31] Environmental activists oppose the plant because it would be near Lake Natron, and it has a very high chance of affecting the lake's ecosystem and its neighbouring dwellers,^[32] jeopardising endangered Lesser Flamingo birds. Lake Natron is where two-thirds of Lesser Flamingos reproduce.^[33] Producing soda ash involves drawing out salt water from the lake, and then disposing the water back to the lake. This process could interrupt the chemical makeup of the lake.^[31] 22 African nations signed a petition to stop its construction.^[31]

Epic Systems trade-secret case judgement

In April 2016, a U.S. Federal Grand Jury awarded Epic Systems a $940 million judgement against Tata Consultancy Services and Tata America International Corp. Filed 31 October 2014; the suit charged that "6,477 unauthorized downloads could be used to enhance Tata's competing product, Med Mantra."^[34][35][36] In 2017, U.S. District Court Judge William Conley reduced the Award to $420 million; the company states that the judgement is also being appealed, as "not supported by evidence presented during the trial and a strong appeal can be made to superior court to fully set aside the jury verdict.”^[37]

2018 NCLT verdict

In July 2018, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which "adjudicates issues relating to Indian companies,"^[38] issued a verdict in the company's favor on charges of mismanagement leveled in 2016 by ousted chairman, Cyrus Mistry.^[39]

2016 fire at headquarters

On 16 June 2016, an electrical short-circuit sparked a fire at Tata Group corporate headquarters in Mumbai. Owing to quick containment, no casualties were reported.^[40]

See also

• Pallonji Mistry


• Noel Tata


• Sir Dorabji Tata and Allied Trusts


• Tata Communications


• Tata Consultancy Services


• Make in India


• Make in Maharashtra


• Fauji Foundation

References

External links

• Official website


• 
  Tata Group collected news and commentary at BloombergQuint