Tata Group holding company Tata Sons on Thursday received the shareholders’ approval to turn itself into a private limited company, PTI reported. This means that ousted chairperson Cyrus Mistry’s Shapoorji Pallonji group will be unable to sell its minority stake in Tata Sons without the approval of the Board of Directors.
An unidentified Tata Sons official told PTI that all resolutions placed during the Annual General Meeting on Thursday had been passed. At least 75% of the company’s shareholders needed to approve the resolution in order to change the entity from a publicly traded firm to a private company.
Cyrus Investments, which is owned by Mistry’s family, had on September 18 urged six Tata Group companies to vote against the move. In a letter to Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Global Beverages, Indian Hotels and Tata Chemicals, the investment firm had said that the step was against the interest of the companies and minority shareholders.
Cyrus Investments had argued that as a private firm, Tata Sons was likely to restrict the free transfer of shares and make divesting their shareholding in the company a challenge. The Mistry family has a minority stake of 18.4% in Tata Sons.
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