Ratan Tata, the Man Who Brought Tata to the World

Rajanish Kakade/Associated PressRatan Tata at the annual general meeting of Tata Steel shareholders in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in this Aug. 14 file photo.

Ratan N. Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, retired Friday after over two decades at the helm of India's largest business conglomerate.

Cyrus P. Mistry, the deputy chairman, was chosen last year to succeed Mr. Tata. Mr. Mistry will be the first chai rman who is not a Tata family member.

The New York Times has chronicled Mr. Tata's business endeavors from the beginning of his career and the Tata Group's ventures over the years.

In 1991, when Ratan Tata was handed the chairmanship by his uncle amid “opposition from senior executives over a plan to restructure the group,” Sanjoy Hazarika wrote:

“His successor began his career in the group's textile division in the 1960's and over the years was given more responsibility by the elder Mr. Tata to conduct the overseas operations of the group, which has significant investments in hotels and computer companies in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. He is the deputy chairman of some of the group's flagship companies, like the iron and steelmaking venture, the power sector and Tata Chemicals. He studied at Cornell and Harvard universities.”

The chairman was key to trans forming the conglomerate, Heather Timmons wrote:

“As company chairman, Mr. Tata has been instrumental in carrying on the family legacy, and turning what was a loosely aligned group of companies that shared one name into a group with seven business lines and centralized management.”

Today, the Tata Group generates $100 billion in annual revenue, and unlike most businesses, two-thirds of the group is owned by philanthropic trusts.

Mr. Tata was described in another New York Times story as “the most unlikely of corporate titans - almost preternaturally humble, unabashedly open about the company's mistakes and about the fact that he never really wanted to be an industrialist.” However, over th e years, Mr. Tata has been credited for takeovers of foreign companies across industries and reviving various businesses under the Tata umbrella.

In 2007, when the Tata Group took over a European steel company, spearheaded by the “lionized” Mr. Tata, Anand Giridharadas wrote:

“India erupted with serves-them-right jubilation this week when Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate, won a bid for the Corus Group - the Anglo-Dutch descendant of British Steel - for more than $12 billion, the largest acquisition ever by an Indian firm. Headlines spoke of empires striking back, while pundits and industrialists said India had at last arrived as a world power.”

The following year, the Tata Group acqu ired the luxury car brands Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company for $1.7 billion. In 2008, Ms. Timmons wrote:

“A string of international deals has diversified Tata to the point where more than half its revenue this year will come from outside India. Tata's increasingly global outlook is also bolstering the overseas ambitions of other Indian companies.”

And then came Mr. Tata's pet project, an affordable car for the people of India, which produced the Nano, priced at $2,500. However, the car, which drew more than 200,000 advance orders, didn't live up to the hype.

On Friday, in a pa rting letter to Tata employees, Mr. Tata wrote:

“I feel confident that the robust growth that India has shown over the past several years will be re-established and the strong fundamentals in the country will result in India once again taking its place as one of the economic success stories of the region. The Tata Group will undoubtedly play an important role in the continued development of our country, providing leadership in various industrial segments in which they operate and living by the value systems and ethical standards on which our Group was founded.”