In an email letter to the members of the Tata Sons board and the trustees of the Tata Trusts, Cyrus Mistry, the recently sacked chairman of the company has referred to himself as a “lame duck” chairman.
In the letter, Mistry lists several instances in which his powers were diminished. He mentions that after his appointment, the Articles of Association were modified, “changing the rules of engagement between the trusts, the board of Tata Sons, the chairman, and the operating companies”.
This, the letter says, severely constrained the ability of the group to engineer the necessary turnaround. Mistry lists the several financial challenges facing group companies, such as Indian Hotels Company Ltd., Tata Capital Ltd., Tata Power Company Ltd. and Tata Motors Ltd. Mistry says in the letter that the capital employed in these “legacy hotspots” rose from Rs 1.32 lakh crore to Rs 1.96 lakh crore between 2011 and 2015. He adds that this figure is close to the networth of the group which is at Rs 1.74 lakh crore. The letter also says “a realistic assessment of the fair value of these businesses could potentially result in the write down over time of about Rs 1.18 lakh crore”.-from Bloomberg
