Tata Sons calls shareholders meeting to oust Mistry from board

[MUMBAI] Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of India's largest conglomerate, has called for an extraordinary general meeting on Feb 6 to oust former chairman Cyrus Mistry from the board of the closely held firm, according to a company spokesman.

Mr Mistry, whose family owns 18.5 per cent of Tata Sons, resigned as director from all Tata Group companies and filed a case with the National Company Law Tribunal alleging that trustees led by interim chairman Ratan Tata were causing a complete breakdown of corporate governance at Tata Sons.

Tata Trusts - a philanthropic group of bodies endowed by the Tata family - own 66 per cent of the firm.

The move to purge Mr Mistry from the holding company is the latest twist in the battle that began with his ouster in October, and has resulted in 26 of the group's Indian units losing US$9.5 billion in market value.

Ratan Tata, who mentored Mr Mistry for the chairman job in 2012, is re-asserting control at the group, which has products ranging from the luxury Jaguar Land Rover cars to table salt.

The Tata Sons board is seeking to remove Mr Mistry to ensure confidentiality of board decisions, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private. The ousted executive's office declined to comment on Friday.

Mr Mistry in a December interview said he will remain a director on the holding company's board "as long as they keep me". The feud and the law suit wasn't about his own position but about reforming the organisation and ensuring the process for selecting the next chairman was transparent, he'd said.

Ratan Tata and four other prominent leaders - Venu Srinivasan, Amit Chandra, Ronen Sen and Kumar Bhattacharyya - are part of a panel formed to find a new Tata Sons chairman by the end of February.

BLOOMBERG