Noel Tata to Make His Debut at Tata Sons Board Meeting
Noel Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts and nominee director at Tata Sons, is expected to attend the upcoming Tata Sons board meeting on Thursday, marking his first appearance at a board meeting. In an unusual arrangement, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran (Chandra), who leads the board of the conglomerate’s holding company and sets the meeting agenda, will have Tata Trusts’ chairman present at the table alongside the other directors at Bombay House.
Tata Sons did not respond to a query on the date of the board meeting or its agenda.
After Tata Group chairman emeritus Ratan Tata passed away last month, his half-brother and chairman of Trent Noel Tata was named chairman of Tata Trusts, which holds 66 percent of Tata Sons. Soon after, Noel Tata was inducted into the Tata Sons board as a trust nominee director. The Tata Sons board has three nominee directors from Tata Trusts, the other two being TVS chairman emeritus Venu Srinivasan and former defense secretary Vijay Singh. Among other directors, former Titan CEO Bhaskar Bhat’s term ended recently, making it a 10-member Tata Sons board.
Sources refused to divulge the agenda of the board meeting but indications are that the Tata Sons stand on listing of the company may come up for a discussion even if it’s not part of the agenda.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has yet to respond to Tata Sons' request for exemption from the mandatory listing requirement. This request follows an RBI classification two years ago, designating Tata Sons as an upper-layer non-banking financial company (NBFC), which necessitates a listing by September 2025. Similarly, Tata Sons' subsidiary, Tata Capital, was also classified as an upper-layer NBFC, with a mandatory listing deadline set for September next year.
To avoid the listing requirement, Tata Sons reportedly repaid around Rs 20,000 crore in debt several months ago, hoping to change its classification and sidestep the listing obligation.