Name : Ratan Tata

Birth Name : Ratan Naval Tata

Date of Birth : December 28, 1937
Place of Birth : Bombay (Mumbai), India
Occupation : Businessman
Nationality : Indian

The Tata were a Parsi priestly family who originally came from the former Baroda state
(now Gujarat). The founder of the family’s fortunes was Jamsetji Nasarwanji Tata (born
March 3, 1839, Navsari [India]—died May 19, 1904, Nauheim, Ger.). After an education
at Elphinstone College in Bombay (Mumbai), he joined his father’s export trading firm
in 1858 and helped establish branches of the company in Japan, China, Europe, and the
United States. ...

Ratan Tata, actually Ratan Naval Tata, was born on December 28, 1937, in Mumbai.
He is the present Chairman of the Tata Group, India's largest conglomerate
established by earlier generations of his family. Ratan Tata was born into the wealthy
and famous Tata family of Mumbai. He was born to Soonoo & Naval Hormusji Tata, a
Gujarati-speaking Parsi family. Ratan is the the great grandson of Tata group
founder Jamsetji Tata. Ratan's childhood was troubled, his parents separating in the
mid-1940s, when he was about seven and his younger brother Jimmy was five.
Ratan Tata's mother moved out and both Ratan and his brother were raised by their
grandmother Lady Navajbai. He was schooled at the Campion School in Mumbai. In
1962, after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in Architecture and
Structural Engineering, Ratan joined the family business. Ratan turned down a job
offer from IBM, following the advice of J.R.D. Tata, and entered the family business.
Ratan Tata joined the Tata Group in December 1962, when he was sent to
Jamshedpur to work at Tata Steel. He worked on the floor along with other blue-
collar employees, shovelling limestone and handling the blast furnaces. In 1971,
Ratan was appointed the Director-in-Charge of The National Radio & Electronics
Company Limited (Nelco), a company that was in dire financial difficulty. Ratan Tata
suggested that the company invest in developing high-technology products, rather
than in consumer electronics. J.R.D. was reluctant due to the historical financial
performance of Nelco which had never even paid regular dividends. Further, Nelco
had 2% market share in the consumer electronics market and a loss margin of 40%
of sales when Ratan took over. Nonetheless, J. R. D. followed Ratan's suggestions.

From 1972 to 1975, Nelco eventually grew to have a market share of 20%, and
recovered its losses. In 1975 however, India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared
a state of emergency, which led to an economic recession. This was followed by
union problems in 1977, so even after demand improved, production did not keep
up. Finally, the Tatas confronted the unions and, following a strike, a lockout was
imposed for seven months. Ratan continued to believe in the fundamental soundness
of Nelco, but the venture did not survive.

In 1977, Ratan Tata was entrusted with Empress Mills, a textile mill controlled by the
Tatas. When he took charge of the company, it was one of the few sick units in the
Tata group. Ratan managed to turn it around and even declared a dividend.
However, competition from less labour-intensive enterprises had made a number of
companies unviable, including those like the Empress which had large labour
contingents and had spent too little on modernisation. On Ratan Tata's insistence,
some investment was made, but it did not suffice. As the market for coarse and
medium cotton cloth (which was all that the Empress produced) turned adverse, the
Empress began to accumulate heavier losses. Bombay House, the Tata headquarters,
was unwilling to divert funds from other group companies into an undertaking which
would need to be nursed for a long time. So, some Tata directors, chiefly Nani
Palkhivala, took the line that the Tatas should liquidate the mill, which was finally
closed down in 1986. Ratan was severely disappointed with the decision, and in a
later interview with the Hindustan Times would claim that the Empress had needed
just Rs 50 lakhs to turn it around. In 1981, Ratan Tata was named Chairman of Tata
Industries, the Group's other holding company, where he became responsible for
transforming it into the Group's strategy think-tank and a promoter of new ventures
in high-technology businesses. In 1991, he took over as group chairman from J.R.D.
Tata, pushing out the old guard and ushering in younger managers. Since then, he
has been instrumental in reshaping the fortunes of the Tata Group, which today has
the largest market capitalization of any business house on the Indian Stock Market.

Under Ratan Tata's guidance, Tata Consultancy Services went public and Tata Motors
was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. His dream was to manufacture a car
costing Rs 100,000 (1998: approx. US$2,200; today US$2,482). In 1998, Tata
Motors introduced his brainchild, the Tata Indica. On January 31st, 2007, under
Ratan Tata's chairmanship, Tata Sons successfully acquired Corus Group, an Anglo-
Dutch steel and aluminium producer. With the acquisition, Ratan Tata became a
celebrated personality in Indian corporate business culture. The merger created the
fifth largest steel producing entity in the world.

On December 28, 2007, Ratan Tata turned 70 and achieved yet another milestone in
fulfiling his dream for Tata Motors as he launched the one lakh rupee 'peoples car,'
officially the TATA Nano, on January 10, 2008 at Auto Expo in New Delhi, India.
Three models of the Nano were announced, and Ratan Tata delivered on his
committment to developing a car costing only 1 lakh rupees, adding that "a promise
is a promise," referring to his earlier promise to deliver this car at the said cost.

Ratan Tata was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Bhushan on
26th January 2000, on the occasion of the 50th Republic Day of India. He serves in
senior capacities in various organisations in India and he is a member of the Prime
Minister's Council on Trade and Industry. In March 2006 Tata was honoured by
Cornell University as the 26th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education,
considered the highest honor the university awards to distinguished individuals from
the corporate sector.

Ratan Tata's foreign affiliations include membership of the international advisory

boards of the Mitsubishi Corporation, the American International Group, JP Morgan
Chase and Booz Allen Hamilton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the
RAND Corporation, and of his alma maters: Cornell University and the University of
Southern California. He also serves as a board member on the Republic of South
Africa's International Investment Council and is a Asia-Pacific advisory committee
member for the New York Stock Exchange. Tata is on the board of governors of the
East-West Center, the advisory board of RAND's Center for Asia Pacific Policy and
serves on the programme board of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS
initiative. In February 2004, Ratan Tata was conferred the title of honorary economic
advisor to Hangzhou city in the Zhejiang province of China.

He recently received an honorary doctorate from the London School of Economics

and listed among the 25 most powerful people in business named by Fortune
magazine in November 2007.

How Gautam Adani anchors his Rs

30kcr empire
Entrepreneurs Gautam Adani and the late Dhirubhai Ambani have more in common than just home state
Gujarat — the former shares with the Reliance patriarch the art of correctly reading India’s political tea
leaves.

It is common knowledge that bureaucrats and politicians have to be kept in good humour if entrepreneurs
have to achieve what they aim for, even when what they do is perfectly legal.

But only a few succeed at this, the trick lying in how one approaches the powerful. Even seasoned
businessmen such as Lakshmi Mittal and Ratan Tata indulge in the occasional outburst against the
bureaucracy for inordinate delays. But not Gautam Adani, despite facing similar hurdles.

The 48-year old may appear soft, but plays hardball. If all goes as planned, by 2020, the matriculate’s
ventures would produce 20,000 MW of power, handle 200 million tonnes of cargo at his port in Mundra and
mine 200 million tonnes of coal and other ores.

Adani, who started dealing in diamonds in Mumbai in 1980 has come to be worth more than Rs 30,000 crore
in three decades. He did not make his money from the fancy 21st century businesses such as software or
telecom, like NR Narayana Murthy of Infosys or Sunil Mittal at Bharti Airtel.
Instead, the burly Adani ventured into what merchants during the Chola empire a thousand years ago and
the British East India Company did: Build ports to facilitate trade. It did not require great technical
knowledge, or massive funds. All that was needed was skills to persuade the bureaucracy to allot land and
guide policies.
"If you look at the group, there is nothing innovative," says Sanjay Gupta, former chief executive,
infrastructure, at the Adani group, who brought some method to the madness of making money at Adani
Enterprises, the group holding company.

The company, founded with a capital of Rs 5 lakh in 1988 to trade, manages ports, develops real estate,
produces electricity, trades in agricultural commodities and explores oil. In a matter of months, it would have
raised Rs 5,500 crore, including the current share sale to funds.

Vedanta to acquire Cairn India

In one of the biggest buyouts of a domestic company, London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta Resources
will take a majority stake in Cairn India for almost $10 billion. The Anil Agarwal-promoted group will
purchase at least 40 per cent from the Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy Plc and the rest through an open
offer.

The group that rode the global commodity boom now plans to saddle the riskier oil and gas exploration and
production business. Besides the three discovered fields in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, Cairn
India has investment commitments in more than half-a-dozen blocks in India and Bangladesh.

On completion of the deal, Vedanta Resources is expected to hold 31-40 per cent in Cairn India directly and
20 per cent through Sesa Goa Ltd. The entire deal is structured so that the group holding in Cairn India
would be between 51 and 60 per cent at a cost of around $8.5-9.6 billion in cash.

“All the debt is being raised in dollars, and we are very comfortable with this. It is going to be for two years.
After that, we can always rollover or refinance it. The annual interest payment is going to be about $350
million and we can easily service the debt,” said Anil Agarwal, the Vedanta chairman.

The transaction is expected to close early next year. Up to $6.5 billion of confirmed bank debt has been tied
up for Vedanta Plc, with a minimum maturity of two years plus.

Shares acquired from Cairn Energy will be at Rs355 a share, with Vedanta paying a non-compete fee of
another Rs50 a share. The deal will set a benchmark for future buyouts in the country’s oil and gas industry.
Valuations of reserves per barrel of oil equivalent will also be closely followed.

Analysts, though, do not view the deal as being good for shareholders of either Vedanta or Cairn India. “The
deal may prove to be a big gamble for Vedanta and Anil Agarwal considering the sheer size of the
transaction. The total market capitalisation of Vedanta is around $9 billion. And the current deal size with
Cairn Energy is $8.5-9.6 billion. To put it in other words, Vedanta will put the entire company at stake for the
sake of this deal,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head at SMC Cap.

The benefit of the no-compete fee, valued at roughly Rs3,570 crore, will not flow to the remaining
shareholders either, since it will not go towards calculations for pricing the open offer, though the draft
takeover recommendations say that there should not be any payment of non-compete fees in future deals.
Since the deal announcement came earlier, the existing norms will be applicable.

Parent Cairn Energy and its overseas investors, including CEO Bill Gammell, will be the biggest beneficiary
of the deal , which was struck one year after its Mangala field in Barmer district of Rajasthan started crude
oil production.

The number of shares held by Gammell in the parent company has risen about ten times to 331,778 as on
March 16, 2010 from 37,302 as on September 25, 2009.
The non-compete fee has been paid to bar Cairn Energy from competing with Cairn India in India, Nepal, Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh, though another subsidiary, Capricon Oil, already holds assets in Bangladesh and
Nepal.

Cairn Energy, which has always focused on exploration rather development and production of oilfields, plans
to use the entire proceeds on its Greenland assets. “The transaction will also ensure we have the financial
flexibility to focus on an active multi-year exploration and drilling programme in Greenland and also consider
further material growth opportunities,” said Gammell.

Malaysian oil major Petronas is its partner in Greenland and Bangladesh besides being an almost 15 per
cent shareholder in Cairn India.

Cairn UK Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cairn Energy, will sell THL Aluminium, a wholly-owned
subsidiary of Vedanta, by a maximum 51 per cent of the fully-diluted share capital at completion of the open
offer and the deal. Upon completion, Cairn Energy will have a residual interest of 10.6-21.6 per cent of the
fully-diluted share capital.

Cairn India on Monday touched a new high of Rs 368 at the Bombay Stock Exchange. However, it closed at
Rs 332.85, down 6.36 per cent. Sesa Goa, the Vedanta group company that will acquire a stake in Cairn
India, lost 8.90 per cent to close at Rs 322.55, while Sterlite Industries, another group company, closed flat
at Rs 160.60. At the London Stock Exchange, shares of Vedanta and Cairn Energy were up by 4.9 and 5.3
per cent, respectively, at 21.30 IST.

Tata – The Evolution of a Corporate Brand by Morgen Witzel

Tata, as a business group and as a brand is a study in itself. Being old, it has a long,
well defined and well documented history. It has multitudes of brands as they make
and service anything from Salt to Steel. They have dealt with various eras in India,
the British Raj, the young democratic setup, license Raj, Nationalization and finally
the liberalization and globalization. Not many industrial houses can boast of this, at
least not in such a varied and wide way. Then they have dimension of variety of
industries, from hard-core engineering to multi format retail to services as wide as
hospitality to information technology. They have businesses that carry Tata names
explicitly, some not so explicitly and some not at all. They all are owned and cross-
owned businesses with Tata sons being the parent or umbrella company which in
turn is owned by a series a trusts.

Author begins by giving the brief history of Tata group and its founders. He talks
about the reputation of Tata and brand Tata. The Reputation has been built over a
century of running key businesses in the country. A brand has been consciously built
over last couple of decades. Brand itself is not a single brand but consists of many
sub brands, at least one for each segment of business they have. Author has tried to
study the co-existence and inter-relations between these brands, the relationship of
each major brand with the corporate brand and existence of brands that do not carry
the Tata name but belong to the group. He has also looked at perceptions about the
group and the family.

He talks about the multitude of connections that various segments of people have
with the various brands of Tata group. Not with much depth, but he has tried to look
at what went into creating those brands. The reputation he says is based on the long
association of Tatas with the society through their social work and investing in
educational and research institutes. It is also based on the work that they do for the
societies in which they exist e.g. tribals in Jharkand where Tata Steel is located. He
looks at the brand from the point of view of various stakeholders like consumers,
employees, financial community, media, society and politicians.

Some core brand characteristics of Tatas are honesty, responsibility and fairness,
which this country kind of believes in as and when they deal with Tata. Since last few
years they have added the dimension of Innovation to this brand through products
like Tata Nano and by entering into new age segments like IT and Telecom. Author
still does not see them as aggressive and youth oriented brand, but as he says it
takes ages to build a brand and I would add it takes more than that to re-align the
brands.

One key aspect he has looked at is the Brand Tata in India and outside India. This is
extremely important as the Tata group goes global in a more visible way. He very
broadly looks at the key markets outside India where Tata are expanding their
footprint and how they are perceived there. In most cases though they are more or
less starting on a clean state with no image to deal with, which in my opinion is a
good place to begin. A question that I would have liked the author to explore or find
out is how should or how do they plan to position themselves as a brand in
international markets. An Indian brand that is global like Coca-cola that is present
across the world but essentially remains American in character or a Global brand
with no particular association with the country of origin. I would like to see them as
Indian brand going global, I think Indian-ness is in the DNA of the brand and it must
remain there. Looking at the juncture at which Tata Group is today, I think this
deserved a little more analysis.

The book makes an easy and quick read, with not much of data or jargon thrown in,
making it a comfortable read for anyone. But as a complete book on one brand I
would have expected a little more depth and something that is not known in public
domain already. It is a good book for people who want a first level introduction to
the largest business group in India.

The Strategist Quiz (#160)

1. This company in 1936 held a public contest to rename itself in order to shed its founding family
name. It received 27,000 responses, but finally chose to use a name which had no meaning. Name
the company.

2. Name the company that owns Asia’s largest mango plantation and whose mangoes are sold in
Harrods of London.
3. Which company owns these brands: Camelia, Aromatic, Fiancee and Code 10?
4. Who said this: “Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential
and significantly devoid of common sense?”

5. What are these four companies ranked in this order for: Agricultural Bank of China, ICBC — China,
Visa International and NTT Japan?

6. What was so significant about American musician Billy Joel’s album 52nd Street ?

7. Which brand runs advertisements with these lines “We are all workers” and “Everybody’s work is
equally important”?
 8. Where will the world’s fastest roller coaster be opened in a couple of months and also name the
world famous brand associated with it?

9. “The best or nothing” is this brand’s new base line. What was its previous one, also name the
brand?
10. Identify this business group by its coat of arms and motto. A lighter version of this logo is found on
its aircraft.

Answers to last week's quiz (#160)

1. This company in 1936 held a public contest to rename itself in order to shed its founding family
name. It received 27,000 responses, but finally chose to use a name which had no meaning. Name
the company.
Toyota

2. Name the company that owns Asia’s largest mango plantation and whose mangoes are sold in
Harrods of London.
Reliance Industries. This orchard was a part of greening the area around the Jamnagar
refinery.

3. Which company owns these brands: Camelia, Aromatic, Fiancee and Code 10?
Marico

4. Who said this: “Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential
and significantly devoid of common sense?”
Henry Mintzberg, professor of strategy at McGill University Canada. He is considered one of
the top gurus on strategy.

5. What are these four companies ranked in this order for: Agricultural Bank of China, ICBC — China,
Visa International and NTT Japan?
Biggest IPOs ever made in the world

6. What was so significant about American musician Billy Joel’s album 52nd Street ?
It was the first album to be released on compact disc in 1982 following the unveiling of the
new technology by Sony and Philips.

7. Which brand runs advertisements with these lines “We are all workers” and “Everybody’s work is
equally important”?
Levi’s

8. Where will the world’s fastest roller coaster be opened in a couple of months and also name the
world famous brand associated with it?
In Ferrari World, a giant race car themed amusement park in Abu Dhabi

9. “The best or nothing” is this brand’s new base line. What was its previous one, also name the
brand?
The Future of the Automobile — Mercedes Benz

10. Identify this business group by its coat of arms and motto. A lighter version of this logo is found on
its aircraft.
 The Wadia Group. Trust in God and perseverance is its motto and the lighter version of this
is painted on all GoAir aircrafts.

Strategist Quiz (#161)

1. Which mobile handset manufacturer is developing phones for the Indian market that can also
double up as a mosquito repellent?

2. Name the person and the cereal brand he started after visiting the Battle Creek Sanitarium and
getting treated by John Harvey Kellogg in the late 1890s?

3. Which company is known to be the first to have promoted its brand by introducing the concept
of coupons?

4. This brand is more than 100 years old and one of its founders named it by the time of the day
he believed most people drank coffee. Name the brand, its founders and the current owner.

5. What does the emerging market group CIVETS comprise?

6. What was founded as one of the world’s first email newsletters in the beginning of the internet
era and before the dotcom bust?

7. Identify this company that is linked not only with brands like the iPad, iPod, Xbox, Playstation
and Amazon Kindle but also to infamous employee suicides in its home country. Recently, an
untoward incident also sparked minor trouble in its plant in India.

8. Which Indian company claims that it derives its values from one of the most dynamic,
hardworking, adaptable and organised creatures, ants?

9. What is common to AMD India and NIIT?

10. Which brand’s mascot is this?

Answersquiz (#161)

1. Which mobile handset manufacturer is developing phones for the Indian market that can also
double up as a mosquito repellent?
Micromax Mobile
2. Name the person and the cereal brand he started after visiting the Battle Creek Sanitarium and
getting treated by John Harvey Kellogg in the late 1890s?
CW Post founded the Postum Cereal company. The Post brand.

3. Which company is known to be the first to have promoted its brand by introducing the concept of
coupons?
Coca-Cola

4. This brand is more than 100 years old and one of its founders named it by the time of the day he
believed most people drank coffee. Name the brand, its founders and the current owner.
Eight O’clock Coffee. It was founded by George Huntington Hartford and George Gilman of
The Great Atlantic and Tea Company during the 1880s. It’s now a Tata brand.

5. What does the emerging market group CIVETS comprise?

Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa

6. What was founded as one of the world’s first email newsletters in the beginning of the internet era
and before the dotcom bust?
The Daily Reckoning

7. Identify this company that is linked not only with brands like the iPad, iPod, Xbox, Playstation and
Amazon Kindle but also to infamous employee suicides in its home country. Recently, an untoward
incident also sparked minor trouble in its plant in India.
Foxconn

8. Which Indian company claims that it derives its values from one of the most dynamic, hardworking,
adaptable and organised creatures, ants?
Bajaj Hindustan Ltd

9. What is common to AMD India and NIIT?

Vishwanathan Anand is their brand ambassador

10. Which brand’s mascot is this?

Gecko the lizard is the mascot of GEICO