Tata Group

The Tata Group was founded as a private trading firm in 1868 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. In 1902 the group incorporated the Indian Hotels Company to commission the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, the first luxury hotel in India, which opened the following year. After Jamsetji’s death in 1904, his son Sir Dorab Tata took over as chair of the Tata Group. Under Dorab’s leadership the group quickly diversified, venturing into a vast array of new industries, including steel (1907), electricity (1910), education (1911), consumer goods (1917), and aviation (1932).

Following Dorab’s death in 1932, Sir Nowroji Saklatwala became the group’s chair. Six years later Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (J.R.D.) took over the position. His continued expansion of the company into new sectors—such as chemicals (1939), technology (1945), cosmetics (1952), marketing, engineering, and manufacturing (1954), tea (1962), and software services (1968)—earned Tata Group international recognition. In 1945 Tata Group established the Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO) to manufacture engineering and locomotive products; it was renamed Tata Motors in 2003. In 1991 J.R.D.’s nephew, Indian business mogul Ratan Tata, succeeded him as chairman of the Tata Group. Upon assuming leadership of the conglomerate, Ratan aggressively sought to expand it, and increasingly he focused on globalizing its businesses. In 2000 the group acquired London-based Tetley Tea, and in 2004 it purchased the truck-manufacturing operations of South Korea’s Daewoo Motors. In 2001 Tata Group partnered with American International Group, Inc. (AIG) to create the insurance company Tata-AIG.

In 2007 Tata Steel completed the biggest corporate takeover by an Indian company when it acquired the giant Anglo-Dutch steel manufacturer Corus Group. The following year the company made headlines worldwide when it ventured into the automotive industry. On January 10, 2008, Tata Motors officially launched the Nano, a tiny, rear-engine, pod-shaped vehicle that eventually sold at a base price (excluding options, tax, and transportation fees) equivalent to $1,500 to $3,000. Although only slightly more than 3 metres (10 feet) long and about 1.5 metres (5 feet) wide, the highly touted “People’s Car” could seat up to five adults and, in Tata’s words, would provide a “safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport” for millions of middle- and lower-income consumers both in India and abroad. The first Nano hit the road in India in July 2009. Tata Motors purchased the elite British brands Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company in 2008. Four years later Ratan Tata retired and was succeeded by Cyrus Mistry. Mistry was abruptly dismissed as chairman in October 2016—reportedly over disagreements with members of the Tata family regarding business strategy—and Ratan returned to the position on an interim basis. Ratan’s second stint as chairman ended in January 2017 when Natarajan Chandrasekaran was appointed to the position.

In September 2017 the Tata Group announced plans to merge its European steelmaking operations with those of the German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp. The merger, which would have created Europe’s second largest steel company (after ArcelorMittal), was blocked by the European Commission over antitrust regulations. In 2022 the Tata Group acquired Air India, an airline founded by the Tata family in 1932 that had been nationalized in 1953.