Tata: the biggest boardroom coup

Abstract

Subject area

Corporate governance; General management; Strategy

Study level/applicability

Post Graduate/MBA

Case overview

Tata Group is a conglomerate having 29 listed companies with consolidated revenues of $103bn in FY2016. On October 24, 2016, Cyrus Mistry, chairman of the group has been replaced in an unceremonious way from this job, in a boardroom coup, without being given any opportunity to explain his case. This news arrived in the media between October 2016 and December 2016 and wide and public debates took place on the corporate governance practices of Tata Group. Mistry’s ouster was attributed to non-performance, unethical practices and non-compliance to Tata culture. This case presents the Tata Group performance before Mistry, at the ouster of Mistry, the major trouble points and the corporate governance activities that took place in this saga at Tata Group. The real losers in this battle were the investors who lost $12bn between October 2016 and December 2016. Many of Tata Group companies’ stocks plunged.

Expected learning outcomes

The students will learn corporate governance, know how a non-listed company control and govern listed entities, know the way performance of a chairman of a company has been evaluated and learn how ethical and cultural issues impact the performance of chairman of a listed company.

Supplementary materials

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Subject code

CSS: 11: Strategy

Citation

Sudhakar, G.P. (2018), "Tata: the biggest boardroom coup", , Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-03-2017-0041