Tata Sons bore Ratan's office costs, says Mistry

The cost was about Rs 30 crore in 2015

The Tata-Mistry war-of-words escalated to Himalayan levels, and got rather personal on Tuesday with ousted chief Cyrus Mistry launching a scathing attack on Ratan Tata, accusing Tata Sons of bearing the office costs of the Tata Group’s patriarch when he was Chairman Emeritus. Besides, the 48-year-old ousted Tata Sons Chairman, also sought to raise issues vis-a-vis the PR services of Nira Radia and Arun Nanda.

Dissecting the November 10 Tata Sons advertisement, Mistry’s office said in a press statement: “...it fails to acknowledge that Tata Sons was also bearing the entire office costs of the Chairman Emeritus, Ratan Tata. This figure was about Rs 30 crore in 2015, a significant amount of which, was for the use of corporate jets. This dual structure and attendant costs did not exist earlier.”

On the issue of PR services, the statement said, “...another significant difference was due to the cessation of services by Nira Radia (Vaishnavi Communication) who was being paid approx. Rs 40 crore per year.  She had been replaced  by  Arun Nanda (Rediffusion Edelman) who had been brought in by Ratan Tata at a cost of Rs 60 crore per year for PR support just prior to Mistry taking charge. It is worth noting that a part of this PR infrastructure was also provided to the Tata Trusts, while paid for by Tata Sons.”

Mistry also stated that the the impairments at Tata Sons was largely due to legacy issues and also due to some questionable investments. “The impairments and write downs at Tata Sons were due to legacy issues, largely relating to Tata Teleservices (TTSL). There were also other investments of questionable nature such as Nagarjuna Refineries (Rs 400 crore) and SASOL JV,” Mistry said.

“One investment in Piaggio Aero, a company in the aerospace sector with a friend of Ratan Tata, was especially distressing. Tata Sons decided to exit the company at a commercial loss of Rs 1,150 crore. This was after the efforts of Bharat Vasani and Farokh Subedar who managed to recover Rs 1,500 crore, overcoming the objections of Ratan Tata, who in contrast, favoured increasing investments in that company,” Mistry added.

According to Mistry, Tata Sons’ ability to absorb future shocks had strengthened between FY11 and FY15 due to its increase in net worth. “Between FY11 and FY15, Tata Sons’ networth, after considering impairments, increased from Rs 26,000 crore to Rs 42,000 crore, significantly strengthening the ability to absorb future shocks,” Mistry said.