Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry Pallonji fired?

• Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry Pallonji was fired in its Board meeting today Monday October 24, 2016.
• Tata Sons gave no reasons given for the change of leadership.

• Shapoorji Pallonji & Co has decided to fight Cyrus Mistry's removal as the Chairman of Tata Sons, according to reports. If true, this could result in one of the biggest legal battles in the history of India Inc. Cyrus Mistry is the younger son of Pallonji Mistry, whose construction company Shapoorji Pallonji & Co is the biggest shareholder of Tata Sons, with a stake of about 18.4 per cent in Tata Sons.
• The media-shy 48-year-old, whose term lasted barely three years 10 months, was the second chairman without the Tata name after Nowroji Saklatwala. Saklatwala also had a short tenure, of six years, dying in the saddle in 1938.
• During Ratan Tata's tenure for 21 years, the group's market cap rose from less than Rs 8,000 crore in 1991 to over Rs 4.62 lakh crore in December 2012 i.e. 57 times.
• It has even shown a strange reluctance to focus on the growing Indian market; the international market still accounts for two-third of overall revenues at $70 billion. The performance of the group, nearly four years into Mistry’s reign as Tata boss, has largely been listless.
• Mistry recently said group companies "need to earn the right to grow," hinting that performance would determine their place in the portfolio. 
• It is believed that Tata Sons was unhappy with Mistry's approach of shedding non-profit businesses, including the conglomerate's steel business in Europe, and concentrating only on cash cows.
• Out of 100 businesses ranging from automobiles to retail to power plants to software,  just two of them have been consistent performers — IT services exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Jaguar Land Rover.
• Tata Motors in domestic automobile business, despite accounting for roughly half of India’s trucks business, has long been under strain.
• Tata Steel, once the brightest star in the Tata constellation thanks to the $12.5 billion acquisition of Anglo-Dutch competitor Corus in 2007, bore the brunt of a sharp plunge in prices since 2012 abetted by Chinese glut.
• The loss-making telecom business has been locked in a bitter and potentially costly battle with erstwhile partner DoCoMo of Japan.
• Titan, Tata Global Beverages, Indian Hotels, Trent, and Rallis India are slightly better off, but their collective operating profit has grown only 4% in the past five years.
• In FY16, nine of the 27 listed companies in the group reported losses and the earnings of seven others dropped. The only bright spot was that Tata Power and Tata Chemicals reported strong earnings growth in FY16 after turning profitable the previous year. 
• The turnover of India’s largest conglomerate dropped to $103 billion in 2015-2016 from $108 billion the previous year. Net debt rose to $24.5 billion in March 2016 from $23.4 billion a year ago. 
• Cross-ownership of companies — Tata Sons owns stakes in businesses like Tata Motors or Tata Steel and these businesses own stakes in each other — has made it difficult for the group to make the most of its potential as a diversified conglomerate.
• There is an inherent bureaucracy in the system that has gone unchallenged for years.
• Cyrus Mistry was not equipped to handle a gigantic group of the size of Tatas. Mistry was elevated to the top job not only because he was capable but also because Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry is the largest shareholder of the Group with 18.4 percent stake in Tata Sons. But Mistry was a micromanager and that did not help the group of the size of Tatas. He did not have the rapport. He would also not let the leaders of the other Tata companies make decisions on their own.

"Perform or Perish"