Skip to main content

The fortunes of the Mistry family is now entirely at the discretion of the Tatas

In 1951 Shapurji Pallonji, the founder, bankrolled the production of the movie ‘Anarkali’ and it continues to ring the cash register. ‘Anarkali’ vastly augmented the SP fortunes and paved the way to its great riches. Today it owns 18.9% of Tata Sons.

Unfortunately, the Mistry family cannot freely monetise the stake in Tata Sons owing to a fractious fallout with Ratan Tata, on the back of Cyrus' unceremonious exit as the chairman of Tata Sons in 2016, and a subsequent adverse Supreme Court (SC) ruling. Since Tata Sons is an unlisted private limited company, the challenge for the Mistrys is that they cannot sell the stake without the approval of Tata Sons and, second, Tatas have valued their holding at ₹70,000-80,000 crore ($10 billion), significantly lower than ₹1.75 lakh crore ($21.8 billion) sought by the Mistrys, back in 2020. The problem is compounded by the Tatas rejecting the Mistrys' proposal to swap the holding for equivalent shares in listed Tata entities, even as the SC verdict is ambivalent on the valuation aspect.

Ironically, the Mistrys' situation is best encapsulated by a dialogue in Mughal-e-Azam, wherein Akbar tells Anarkali: “Salim tujhe marne nahin dega, aur hum Anarkali, tujhe jeene nahin denge (Salim won't let you die, nor will we, Anarkali, let you live).” To put it into context, while the legacy of the Mistrys will stay alive in Tata Sons, Ratan Tata will not let the family make the most of it. Interestingly, in the good old days of bonhomie, within days of assuming office in 1991, Ratan Tata had penned a handwritten note to Pallonji stating: "Our standing together will be a matter of strength… Let me reiterate that I will never do anything to hurt you or your family."

 https://www.fortuneindia.com/long-reads/mistrys-wealth-tryst-with-tatas/109612 #CyrusMistry #ShapoorMistry #wealth #networth #Tata #TataSons #TataGroup #FortuneIndiaRichList


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Helen Mirren once said: Before you argue with someone, ask yourself.......

Helen Mirren once said: Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of a different perspective. Because if not, there's absolutely no point. Not every argument is worth your energy. Sometimes, no matter how clearly you express yourself, the other person isn’t listening to understand—they’re listening to react. They’re stuck in their own perspective, unwilling to consider another viewpoint, and engaging with them only drains you. There’s a difference between a healthy discussion and a pointless debate. A conversation with someone who is open-minded, who values growth and understanding, can be enlightening—even if you don’t agree. But trying to reason with someone who refuses to see beyond their own beliefs? That’s like talking to a wall. No matter how much logic or truth you present, they will twist, deflect, or dismiss your words, not because you’re wrong, but because they’re unwilling to see another side. Maturity is...

The battle against caste: Phule and Periyar's indomitable legacy

In the annals of India's social reform, two luminaries stand preeminent: Jotirao Phule and E.V. Ramasamy, colloquially known as Periyar. Their endeavours, ensconced in the 19th and 20th centuries, continue to sculpt the contemporary struggle against the entrenched caste system. Phule's educational renaissance Phule, born in 1827, was an intellectual vanguard who perceived education as the ultimate equaliser. He inaugurated the inaugural school for girls from lower castes in Pune, subverting the Brahminical hegemony that had long monopolized erudition. His Satyashodhak Samaj endeavoured to obliterate caste hierarchies through radical social reform. His magnum opus, "Gulamgiri" (Slavery), delineated poignant parallels between India's caste system and the subjugation of African-Americans, igniting a discourse on caste as an apparatus of servitude. Periyar's rationalist odyssey Periyar, born in 1879, assumed the mantle of social reform through the Dravidian moveme...

AI & Higher Education: The Empty Classroom

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & HIGHER EDUCATION The Empty Classroom When students outsource learning to AI and companies cut the engineers who know better, both ends of the talent pipeline fray at once. India is not watching from a safe distance. Chuppala Nagesh Bhushan At the University of California, Berkeley, something unremarkable happened in spring 2026: a professor held office hours. The unremarkable part was that nobody came. Dan Garcia, who teaches CS 10, a broad introductory computing course popularly called “The Beauty and Joy of Computing,” found his calendar conspicuously clear at the very moment his gradebook became conspicuously alarming. Of the students who sat CS 10’s final examination, 35.3% received an F—five times the historical norm of roughly 7%. Two other courses in Berkeley’s elite Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department suffered similarly: 10.6% of CS 61A students failed, and 16.8% of those in EECS 127, an upper-division optimi...