Tata Trusts Proposes Merger Plan to Keep Tata Sons Unlisted and Shed CIC Status

Tata Trusts, which owns about 66% of Tata Sons, has proposed merging Tata Electronics Systems Solutions and Tata Consulting Engineers into the group’s holding company. The restructuring would give Tata Sons operating businesses and revenue alongside its investment-holding role; Tata Trusts says operating revenue would make up 64.3% of total income, and investments in group companies would fall below the threshold for Core Investment Company classification. The plan is intended to take Tata Sons outside the regulatory definitions of both an NBFC and a CIC, potentially allowing it to remain privately held rather than meet the listing requirement for an upper-layer NBFC. The proposal follows the RBI’s rejection of an earlier request to deregister Tata Sons as a CIC, and its outcome is uncertain: it requires approval from the Tata Sons board and a prior RBI no-objection certificate.
Tata Trusts said Tata Sons had operated businesses and earned operating revenue for nearly 80 of its 100 years. Tata Consultancy Services was once a division of Tata Sons before being demerged into a separate subsidiary in 2004.
The proposed entity would have net assets of ₹2,00,158 crore, including ₹1,77,120 crore invested in group companies—figures that underpin the proposal’s claim that those investments would be below the 90% CIC threshold.
Tata Sons’ board had already agreed to follow the RBI’s direction to become a public company. At its September 17 meeting, it also opposed Trusts chair Noel Tata’s decision not to extend N. Chandrasekaran’s term for a third time from February next year, highlighting tensions that could complicate approval of the restructuring.
The boards of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Sir Ratan Tata Trust had passed unanimous resolutions in July 2025 calling for all efforts to keep Tata Sons unlisted.
Publishers
18
Articles
15
Reach
33