Even before that, the two are likely to meet at the Tata Steel board on November 7 to approve the second quarter earnings. In a stock exchange notice, Tata Steel announced that the board meeting, originally planned for October 27, had to be changed due to “unavoidable circumstances”. Chandrasekaran is the non-executive chairman of Tata Steel, while Noel is the non-executive vice-chairman of the company. Noel would step down from the board of Tata Steel and some other companies on November 12 as he turns 70—the retirement age for non-executive directors.
There have also been suggestions, including open letters from Tata loyalists, for the chairmen of Tata Sons and Tata Trusts to sit across the table and talk.
November is also likely to witness a board meeting of Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT)—a core entity of Tata Trusts, which is learnt to have defended its position to keep Tata Sons unlisted in a recent letter to the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner. A source in the know said that the central point in SDTT’s reply to the Charity Commissioner was that Tata Trusts, as 66 per cent shareholder of Tata Sons, was well within its rights to protect the asset when it proposed restructuring of the business to avoid stock market listing of the holding company. SDTT sent its communication last week to the Charity Commissioner, responding to complaints by Venu Srinivasan and Vijay Singh, vice-chairmen of Tata Trusts, alleging interference in commercial matters and raising governance concerns in violation of the charitable organisation’s mandate.
Maharashtra Charity Commissioner Amogh Shyamkant Kaloti is expected to take a decision on the SDTT matter soon to provide clarity to the group which has been in the midst of leadership uncertainty for months. The charity commissioner, which operates under the government of Maharashtra, had earlier this year frozen the decision-making powers of Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT)—another key entity of Tata Trusts.
The SDTT response to the charity commissioner is believed to be in line with its proposal announced on September 28 to reorganise Tata Sons through an amalgamation process. After the merger of Tata Electronics Systems Solutions Pvt Ltd (TESS) and Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE) with Tata Sons Pvt Ltd (TSPL), the holding company would neither be a non-banking financial company (NBFC) nor a core investment company (CIC) and therefore it can remain private, SDTT is learnt to have reasoned. The idea is to preserve the century-old organisational structure of the group, it maintained.
However, another source pointed out that listing of Tata Sons would not alter the strength of Tata Trusts’ shareholding or affect its representation on the Tata Sons board. According to the Articles of Association (AoA) of Tata Sons, one-third of the Tata Sons board must be represented by Tata Trusts nominees. At present, Noel Tata and Venu Srinivasan are the Trusts nominees on the six-member Tata Sons board.
At the September 17 board meeting of Tata Sons, the directors backed a third term for Chandrasekaran as chairman of the company once his tenure ends in February 2027 and decided to pursue the listing of Tata Sons as per the Reserve Bank of India mandate for upper layer NBFCs. Noel Tata was the only one to oppose both, though there was no voting on the listing matter.
More than a month after the RBI rejected Tata Sons’ 2024 application to deregister itself as a CIC, central bank governor Sanjay Malhotra, at a media event on Friday, said stock exchange listing was mandatory for any upper layer NBFC. He did not specifically talk about Tata Sons.
