The much awaited board meeting of Tata steel was held on 25th November. A resolution was passed to replace Cyrus Mistry with O P Bhatt. There was an unclear air about the future leadership to the Tata group. However, now atleast one of the major companies of the group stands confident about its future chairman .
The Tata steel board meeting held at the Bombay house was the second meeting at the venue. The first one , dated 24th October , being the historic meeting in which Mistry was ousted from the board.
O P Bhatt is a renowned face of the Corporate India. O P Bhatt was appointed as an Independent Director of Tata Steel on June 10, 2013. He serves as an Independent Director on several Boards including Standard Chartered Bank Tata Consultancy Services and Hindustan Unilever. Most remarkably, he has also chaired The State Bank of India, the largest Bank of India , Indeed a pragmatic choice amidst the massive‘Tata’chaos .
In the recent meeting , O P bhatt was elected as an interim Chairman of the board . The wait to declare him as the final Chairman will end on 21st Decemeber. An Extra ordinary General Meeting of shareholders will be held on this day .
The Tatas enjoy a 31.35 per cent stake in the company. The remaining stake is owned by institutional shareholders like LIC, mutual funds and other minority shareholders.
A Tata Steel statement to the stock exchanges said,”The Board appointed the independent director as the Chairman keeping in mind principles of good corporate governance and to provide impartial leadership to the Company in its preparation and conduct of the EGM. This decision was taken to also ensure stability to the company and in the larger interest of Tata Steel’s stakeholders including but not limited to employees, trading partners, financial stakeholders and local community around its operations.”
Mistry’s office counter-claimed stating,“ It is a common knowledge that the decision to acquire Corus for over $12 billion, when only a year earlier it was available at less than half that price, was based on one man’s ego and against the reservations of some board members and senior executives.”
Ever since the ouster of Cyrus Mistry as the Chairman of the Tata group on 24th October, ‘silent wars’ have been sparking between both the parties. The battle has taken a toll on the market capitalization of the company’s shares. The ‘war of words ‘ doesn’t apparently happens to end , any sooner. Due to the worldwide reputation Tatas enjoy , the upheaval shall not stir shareholders ‘confidence in the company . (Atleast things should remain smooth until no big turn of events is announced!)
