MUMBAI: Ratan Tata, the former Tata Group chairman who put a staid and sprawling Indian conglomerate on the global stage with a string of high-profile acquisitions, died on Wednesday. He was 86.

Tata, who ran the conglomerate for more than 20 years as chairman, had been undergoing intensive care in a Mumbai hospital.

After graduating with a degree in architecture at Cornell University in the United States, he returned to India and in 1962 began working for the group his great-grandfather had founded nearly a century earlier.

He worked in several Tata companies, including Telco, now Tata Motors, as well as Tata Steel, later making his mark by erasing losses and increasing market share at group unit National Radio & Electronics Company.

In 1991, he took the helm of the conglomerate when his uncle J.R.D. Tata stepped down — the passing of the baton coming just as India embarked on radical reforms.

In one of his first steps, Ratan Tata sought to rein in the power of some heads of Tata Group’s companies, enforcing retirement ages and promoting younger people to senior positions.

He founded telecommunications firm Tata Teleservices in 1996 and took IT firm Tata Consultancy Services , the group’s cash cow, public in 2004.

But to grow properly, the group determined it needed to look beyond Indian shores.

The group purchased British tea firm Tetley in 2000 for $432 million and Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus in 2007 for $13 billion, at the time the biggest takeover of a foreign firm by an Indian company. Tata Motors then acquired British luxury auto brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co in 2008 for $2.3bn.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2024