Book explores rise and fall of Cyrus Mistry, tells ‘The Story of Tata’

PTI, Aug 29, 2021, 4:23 PM IST

Insiders of the Tata businesses open up to Irish entrepreneur-author Peter Casey to tell ”The Story of Tata (1868-2021)” from its humble beginnings as a mercantile company to its growth as a successful conglomerate and its recent brush with Cyrus Mistry.

Published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI), the book, released on August 27, explores the rise and fall of Cyrus Mistry in the background of one of the largest business groups in the world. It includes the ”never-seen-before” correspondence between the Shapoorji Pallonji scion Mistry and Ratan Tata.

Mistry, who had succeeded Ratan Tata as chairman of the Tata Sons amid huge fanfare in 2012, was removed from the post unceremoniously four years later.

”.. The one thing that everyone agrees with is that once the board of a company has lost confidence in its chairman or CEO, it is in everyone’s best interests that they part ways. This would certainly have been the preferred option for the board of Tata Sons. They had lost confidence in the leadership of Cyrus Mistry, he was dismissed and the world moved on,” writes the author in its introduction.

”To understand why this preferred outcome did not occur, we must put together all the interconnected pieces in a puzzle in which the pieces have been joining one to another since 1868, when Jamsetji Tata decided to set up a company that would change not just India but indeed the world,” he adds.

According to Ratan Tata, unlike writings by people who did not possess detailed knowledge about the events or were biased in their opinion, Peter’s book does not seem to hold ”biased positions”.

“Over the last few years much has been written about my tenure as Chairman of Tata Sons. Many of the writings were by people who did not possess detailed knowledge of the events or by people who held biased positions. Peter’s book does not seem to hold biased positions,” said Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons, about the book.

Besides the high-profile Mistry-Tata clash, the book also claims to offer an insider’s look into the company that is widely heralded as one of the most successful and ethical businesses in the world.

Founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1868, the Tata group is a global enterprise, headquartered in India, comprising 30 companies across ten verticals. The combined market cap of Tata Companies was 9.3 trillion rupees as of March 31, 2020.

Casey is also the author of ”Tata: The World’s Greatest Company” (2014).