Mumbai, Nov 24: More than a year of speculation over who would run India’s biggest business group ended in surprise on Wednesday, as Tata Sons Ltd announced that Cyrus P Mistry, 43, will succeed the long-standing chairman 73-year-old Ratan Tata.
For only the second time in the 143-year-old history of the salt-to-software conglomerate, whose business encompasses 100 companies spread over 80 countries and spanning six continents, that an “outsider” has been charged with the its reins.
However, even though Mistry, as a myriad of pundits in opinion pieces point out, may not bear the Tata surname, yet he comes “as close as an outsider could come” to emulate the name that rings synonymous with “wealth, ethics and gentility”.
Mistry’s selection as the heir apparent to Ratan Tata was announced on Wednesday by a five-man selection team - which included the son of construction magnate Pallonji Mistry himself - after 15 months of closed door search, that had India guessing.
It was Mistry's grandfather who first bought shares in Tata Sons in the 1930s, a stake that currently stands at 18.5 percent making his father, a reclusive billionaire with an estimated wealth of $7.6 billion, the largest single shareholder in the firm mostly controlled by trusts.
An Irish national, Pallonji Mistry, is a construction tycoon of Parsi descent and chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, who is dubbed the "Phantom of Bombay House" for his subtle but sure command over the south Mumbai headquarters of the Tata empire.
Paving the way for his younger son's ascendancy to the top of the group founded by Ratan Tata's great-grandfather as he left the baton to Cyrus, Pallonji Senior retired from the board of Tata Sons in 2006, having been granted a year's extension past the 75-year age cap.
With an engineering degree from the Imperial College in London and later a management masters from the London Business School, Cyrus Mistry had begun his career working for Shapoorji Pallonji & Co in 1991 -- a post that he resigned from on Wednesday.
Married to constitutional lawyer Iqbal Chagla's daughter Rohiqa, Mistry has two sons, aged 13 and 15 and is known to have interest in golf, 'easy listening' music sharing his family's love of horses.
Despite his lineage and also being the brother-in-law to Noel Tata, Ratan Tata's half-brother -- who was considered by many to have been the front-runner in the race for the chairmanship -- Cyrus Mistry is seen as being relatively unknown in Indian business circles.
However, expressing his consent to the choice in a statement on Wednesday, Ratan Tata said, “I have been impressed with the quality and calibre of his participation, his astute observations and his humility. He is intelligent and qualified to take on the responsibility being offered.”
Mistry said, "I feel deeply honoured by this appointment. I am aware that an enormous responsibility, with a great legacy, has been entrusted to me. I look forward to Mr Tata's guidance in the year ahead in meeting the expectations of the Group."
With the unanimous backing from the selection committee, Mistry became Tata Group's deputy chairman and will work alongside Ratan Tata for the next 12 months before becoming the sixth chairman of the group.