RBI may let Tata Sons stay private if Tata Trust, Mistry family agree

Core operations, however, showed strong performance, with revenue from core operations comprising dividends, interest, and brand royalty fees, grew by 62% in FY25 to Rs 38,834.58 crore, down from Rs 43,893 crore in FY24, mainly due to the absence of large profit from investment sales.

Other income, which mainly consists of gains from TCS share buybacks, plummeted 99% to Rs 125 crore in FY25 from a significant Rs 20,036 crore in FY24. Total revenue also included a profit of Rs 9,376 crore from selling investments.

But expenses also fell nearly 30% to Rs 1,946 crore helping it maintain higher cash and bank balances which rose 61% to Rs 1,866 crore in FY25 from Rs 1,154 crore in FY24.

Tata Sons, which has 323 subsidiaries as of March 2025, has invested Rs 21,591 crore in both new and existing businesses to help them grow and deleverage their balance sheets.  Most of this amount, as much as about 95%, went into unlisted companies and only Rs 1,082 crore was invested in listed companies, mainly Tata Consumer Products.

Among unlisted and new companies, Tata Digital received the largest funding, with Rs 3,960 crore. Air India was close behind, with Rs 3,225 crore. Tata Electronics got Rs 3,000 crore, while Panatone Finvest, which owns Tejas Networks, received Rs 1,500 crore. Agratas was also funded with Rs 1,149 crore.

Older businesses also got funding with Tata Autocomp getting Rs 2,122 crore, Tata Capital (Rs 1,432 crore) before its IPO, Tata Projects got Rs 1,500 crore, and Tata International was given Rs 1,000 crore.

Tata Trusts comprises 12 trusts but primarily Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, and Shapoorji Pallonji group (SP Group, comprising Sterling Investments and Cyrus Investments) are the two major shareholders of Tata Sons, holding 66.4% and 18.6&, respectively. A few Tata Group companies and certain members of the Tata family hold the remaining shares of Tata Sons.

Ever since Tata Sons sacked the late Cyrus Mistry as the chairman through a board room coup in late October 2016, the Mistrys were looking for an exist through listing Tata Sons shares. The stake held by SP Group in Tata Sons is pledged with lenders. However, Tata Trusts, the majority owners of Tata Sons, are keen to retain the holding company as an unlisted entity.

Ahead of the August 14, AGM, group chairman N Chandrasekaran had reportedly met Shapoor Mistry, the chairman of the SP group.