MUMBAI, India (NNN-Bernama) -- Ratan Tata, who led the
transformation of the Tata group from a conventional corporate house into a
US$100 billion global conglomerate with high-profile acquisitions abroad, will
retire Friday ending a 50-year run in one of India's oldest business empires,
reports Press Trust of
Marking a generational change, Tata, who
turns 75 on Friday, will hand over the reins of the group to 44-year-old Cyrus
Mistry, who was chosen his successor last year and formally appointed Chairman
earlier this month.
Tata is hanging up his boots after steering
the group for 21 years as its Chairman, when he succeeded the legendary JRD
Tata. While JRD made Tata the Chairman out of the blue in 1971, Mistry of the
Shapoorji Pallonji group and whose family owns 18 per cent stake in Tata Sons,
was chosen by a five-member selection committee.
During Tata's tenure, the group's revenues
grew manifold, totaling US$100.09 billion (around Rs 475,721 crore) in 2011-12
from a turnover of a mere Rs 10,000 crore (over US$2 billion) in 1971.
His vision to transform the group into a
multinational giant resulted in high profile acquisitions such as Tata Tea's
takeover of UK
But Ratan Tata set new standards for the
Indian corporates in the current era of globalisation when Tata Steel acquired
Anglo-Dutch rival Corus for 6.2 billion pounds beating CSN of Brazil in 2007.
A year later, the group's automotive firm
Tata Motors lapped up British luxury vehicle maker Jaguar Land Rover for US$2.3
billion from Ford Motor Co.
Even as Tata was concentrating on activities
abroad, he came up with the idea of producing the world's cheapest car when he
conceived the 'Rs one lakh' small car Nano.
(One Lakh: 100,000)
The Tata group underwent moments of high
tension in executing the Nano project when it got into problems on acquisition
of land in Singur in eastern Indian state West Bengal .
Ironically, the group had to shift the
project from Singur, where he was invited by Marxist Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya, to Sanand in western state Gujarat
at the invitation of Narendra Modi.
Although Nano could not live up to the
expectations after its initial worldwide acclaim, the small car will still be
remembered as Tata's desire to provide a "safer" option to many
Indian lower-middle class families riding two-wheelers.
In a recent interview to PTI, he said Singur
was a "great disappointment" for him because he went there "in a
leap of faith" thinking that part of the country was being ignored
industrially.
Tatas will still go to West
Bengal someday, he said.
Under Tata, the group also made great
strides when it capitalised on the sunrise industry of information technology
in the 90's. With revenues of over US$10 billion in 2011-12, Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS) is today India
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