Even as a battery of lawyers gets ready to fight the Tata battle over N Chandrasekaran’s reappointment as chairman of Tata Sons for a third term, the issue of the holding company’s stock market listing has come into sharp focus, it is learnt.
Against the backdrop of Tata Trusts suggesting a restructuring of Tata Sons’ assets or shareholding, so that it remains a privately held company, a source told Business Standard that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could release another communiqué soon, mandating an early listing to remove any ambiguity in
the interpretation of its previous missive.
The RBI did not respond to a query on this matter till the time of going to press.
The Tata Sons board met on September 17 to discuss two important items. First on the agenda, was the proposal to list Tata Sons as mandated by the RBI after the regulator rejected its application to deregister itself as a core investment company (CIC), and the second was a resolution to renew Chandrasekaran’s term as chairman of Tata Sons for another five years when his current tenure ends on February 20, 2027.
The Tata Sons board, barring Tata Trusts chairman and nominee director Noel Tata, backed both these items. The resolution on Chandrasekaran’s reappointment is a subject of legal dispute over the interpretation of several clauses contained in the Tata Sons’ Articles of Association (AoA) related to veto power of the nominee directors, affirmative voting and casting vote of the chairman.
While Tata Trusts is likely to move court on Chandrasekaran’s reappointment, it wants Tata Sons to engage further with the RBI to explore options other than listing. According to Noel Tata, the RBI letter to Tata Sons dated September 11 did not refer to listing while rejecting its application to exempt it from the CiC category. Soon after the September 17 board meeting of Tata Sons ended, a statement quoting Noel Tata said the RBI communication of September 11 declines an application for voluntary surrender of registration, but it does not say that listing is the only option. “Considerable room remains and this board should occupy that room rather than concede it,” he said. Telling Tata Sons to engage with the RBI on the matter to remain private, he pressed for time till September 2029 for any compliance measure.
Tata Sons was categorised as an upper-layer non-banking financial company (NBFC) in 2022, and RBI mandated listing of all such companies within three years. In the meantime, Tata Sons cleared its debts and sought to deregister itself as a CIC in 2024 to remain private.
The RBI’s September 11 letter stated that after examining all the aspects of the application for voluntary surrender from the CIC category, it had come to the decision that the request “cannot be acceded to”. A month before that, in August 2026, the RBI had put Tata Sons in the list of upper-layer NBFCs, while stating at that point that its application for deregistration as a CIC was under examination.
Within days of the RBI’s letter to Tata Sons that its CIC deregistration application had been rejected, the regulator filed a caveat in the Bombay High Court so that it could be heard before any order is passed on the matter in case there’s a petition challenging its listing directive.
The shareholders of Tata Sons hold contrasting views on listing the holding company of Tata group. While Tata Trusts, which holds 66 per cent in Tata Sons, is opposed to listing the company, the second largest shareholder Shapoorji Pallonji group, with more than 18 per cent stake, is backing the proposed listing.