He was a major force behind the modernization and globalization of one of the oldest companies in India.
His propensity to take big, risky business risks guided a high-profile acquisition strategy that helped his forefathers’ salt-to-steel conglomerate stay relevant when India’s economy liberalized in the 1990s. The conglomerate was created 155 years ago.
The greatest cross-border acquisition in Indian business history was carried out by Tata at the start of the new millennium when it acquired Tetley Tea, the second-largest teabag manufacturer in the world. The venerable British brand was three times larger than the little Tata group business that had acquired it.
His aspirations only increased in the years that followed as his business absorbed significant British industrial heavyweights.
Even if the acquisitions weren’t always successful—Corus, which was acquired for astronomically high prices right before the 2007 global financial crisis, hindered Tata Steel’s performance for years—they were nevertheless significant power plays.
Mircea Raianu, a historian and the author of Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism, claims that they also had a significant symbolic impact. The enterprise from a former colony took over the prize assets of the motherland, reversing the scornful attitude with which British businessmen looked upon the Tata Group a century earlier, he continues, “representing ‘the empire striking back’.”
