He can be counted among the numerous corporate children of the reforms era, the creation of liberalisation. As he matured, the late Cyrus Mistry, who died in a sad and sensational car accident, evolved as an international citizen, a product of globalisation. He was involved in the successful making, and reshaping, of two Indian multinational groups. But unlike Pico Iyer, the author of several books, including The Global Soul, Mistry was not an “uprooted person” and never had to grapple with “ideas of marginalised cultures, loss of the Real, and the shifting sense of identity” in a post-modern world.
With his feet firmly planted in India, Mistry had a bird’s eye view of the corporate planet. He took his family business, Shapoorji Pallonji Group, to great heights with operations in India, the Middle East and Africa. As a director of Tata Sons, the holding company of the tech-to-truck Tata conglomerate, he engaged with Tata Group’s massive and controversial global takeovers of Corus Steel and Jaguar-Land Rover. Later, as Tata Sons’ Chairman, he developed a new Indian MNC vision to focus on new opportunities and shed old brick-and-mortar businesses.
Unfortunately, in the past few years of his life, he was caught in intense boardroom battles, a war among business Tsars, and terrifying legal-media strife between two equally confident and stubborn personalities.
In India’s business history, his clash with Ratan Tata will define Mistry’s achievements or lack thereof. For those unaware, since he was ousted as Chairman of Tata Sons in a bloodied corner-room coup in 2016, Mistry fought to defend his professional legacy, apart from family heritage. He was caught between the need to project an image of the new breed of entrepreneur professionals and the pressures to pursue dynastic desires. This was possibly Mistry’s biggest weakness.
In the early 1990s, as India embarked on the reforms path, Mistry became the head of the family’s flagship, the construction giant Shapoorji Pallonji & Co, when he was in his twenties. This was the time of unprecedented corporate churn, a liberalisation-led manthan.
The Indian business theatre was the foundation (Lord Vishnu’s Kurma avatar as a tortoise in mythology), free-market policies acted as Mount Mandara or the pole, and ever-evolving and ever-changing corporate strategies emerged as the giant serpent (Vasuki). Existing companies were rocked, rolled, wrecked and cracked during the decade.
Many business families died or declined—Modi and Dalmia in the north, Sarabhai and Mafatlal in the west, and TVS and MAC in the south. Some went through tumultuous ups and downs—Bajaj, Goenka, Thapar, Ranbaxy Brothers and Mallya. New names cropped up. These included first-generation industrialists with trading and professional backgrounds—Gupta of Havells, software satraps like Infosys’ founders and Shiv Nadar, and tech giants like co-founders of Flipkart and Byju’s. Only a few pre-reforms families thrived—Ratan Tata, the Ambani clan, and K M Birla. Among these elites was the Mistry lineage, led by Cyrus.
During the early 2000s, Tata Sons appointed Cyrus Mistry as a director, a post earlier held by his father. This was logical as the Mistry family held a huge stake in Ratan Tata’s holding company for decades. At present, it is just over 18%.
From this vantage point, the future Chairman of Tata Sons witnessed tectonic changes unleashed by Ratan Tata, who went overboard and left no purse-strings unopened to buy out large global steel and auto companies successfully. Corus Steel and Jaguar-Land Rover held emotional and anti-colonial connotations—an Indian taking over established and renowned British brands.
There are two schools of thought, which emerged after the Tata-Mistry spat, on Mistry’s position on the takeovers. The first states that he supported Ratan, who sought crucial advice from Mistry. The second states that the Shapoorji scion was nervous about mega cross-border deals based on emotions and personal ambitions. He felt that business decisions had to be rational and based on data and strategies rather than dreams and desires. The fact that Mistry didn’t oppose them as a director—Tata later made him Chairman—favours the first theory. The fact that he opposed them after he became Chairman hints at the second.
Around his self-imposed retirement, at 75, Ratan Tata searched the planet for his successor at Tata Sons. He shunned half-brother Noel, who is married to Mistry’s sister, Aloo, in favour of a professional. Thus, like business families before him, Ratan wished to decouple ownership from management—Tata might be owners of Tata Sons and Tata Group, but a professional would run both. At the end of the worldwide hunt, Tata Sons anointed an insider-outsider, Mistry, to take over the reins in 2012. Sadly, like in other business families, the experiment flopped miserably within five years.
Tata accused Mistry of taking Tata Group on a dangerous course. The new Chairman of Tata Sons, and head of high-profile listed firms within the group, pursued new takeovers (Welspun’s renewable energy assets) and decided to exit high-profile operations like UK’s Corus Steel.
He criticised Tata Nano and the telecom venture. Mistry charged that Tata trusts, which owned majority stakes in Tata Sons, interfered in the group’s decisions. Ratan was unwilling to give up control and meddled in crucial strategies. Since steel and small cars were his dream projects, Ratan could not let go of the loss-making operations.
In 2016, Tata Sons unceremoniously sacked Mistry. Other group firms followed suit. Mistry didn’t take it lying down. As accusations and allegations flew thick and fast, he took Tata to court. The battles were fought in the courts and on the front pages of the newspapers.
Both individuals fought to preserve their egos, credibility, and family traditions. Ratan wanted the world to know that he was the true successor of the renowned J R D Tata. Mistry wanted to convey he was the poster boy of this century’s band of professional entrepreneurs. A child of reforms took on another one—ironic that Ratan took over from J R D in 1991.
Independent journalist and author