Roots · उद्योग Enterprise

Tata: a conglomerate owned by trusts.

One hundred and fifty-eight years from a trading company to more than a million people at work. Two-thirds of the holding company is owned by charitable trusts. The record of Jamsetji, JRD, Ratan Tata and N. Chandrasekaran, with its wins, its setbacks and its critics.

From ₹21,000 to a million jobs.

Ratan Tata led the group from 1991 to 2012. He died on 9 October 2024. Photograph: Sarvajanik Puralekh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Founded
1868 by Jamsetji Tata as a trading company with ₹21,000 of capital. Empress Mills at Nagpur followed in 1874 and the Taj Mahal Hotel in 1903. Tata Group, our timeline
Built by
Jamsetji Tata, the founder. J. R. D. Tata, chairman 1938–1991. Ratan Tata, 1991–2012 and again for a few months from 2016. N. Chandrasekaran, chairman since 2017. Noel Tata has chaired Tata Trusts since 11 Oct 2024. Tata Group, heritage · Wikipedia (Ratan Tata) · Wikipedia (Noel Tata)
Who owns it
Tata Sons is the holding company. Tata Trusts own about 66% of it. The Shapoorji Pallonji group owns about 18.4%. Wikipedia (Tata Sons) · Tata Group, overview (FY25)
Scale
31 companies, 26 of them listed, and more than a million employees (FY25). Group revenue was ₹16.24 lakh crore in FY26 and group profit ₹1.71 lakh crore, as reported from the Tata Sons annual report. Tata Group, overview (FY25) · The Tribune, Jul 2026 · Bigul, on the Tata Sons FY26 annual report

The Chandrasekaran years in four figures.

  • ₹16.24 lakh cr Group revenue, FY26: From ₹7.89 lakh crore in FY20
  • ₹24.39 lakh cr Group market value, FY26: From ₹9.31 lakh crore in FY20
  • $30.0 bn TCS revenue, FY26: Down 0.5%. 5,84,519 people
  • ₹22,238 cr Air India loss, FY26: Up from ₹10,859 crore

Group figures as reported from the Tata Sons FY26 annual report. TCS from its own release of 9 Apr 2026.

Sources
Group growth since FY20, TCS and Air India. Upstox, the Chandrasekaran years in numbers · TCS, Q4 FY26 press release · Bigul, on the Tata Sons FY26 annual report

What was built and what it cost.

  1. 1907–1911 · Steel and science (vijay). Tata Iron and Steel was set up at Sakchi, now Jamshedpur, with a town and a hospital around the plant. Tata Power’s first hydro plant came in 1910. The Indian Institute of Science, founded with Jamsetji’s gift, took its first students in 1911. Build the town and the institution along with the plant. They outlast it. Tata Group, our timeline
  2. 1932 · JRD flies the mail (vijay). J. R. D. Tata flew the first Karachi to Bombay flight himself. Tata Airlines became Air India, which the government later nationalised. The founder shows up in the cockpit. Tata Group, our timeline
  3. 1968 · TCS (vijay). India’s first software services company, founded twenty years before the industry had a name. The best bets look early. This one looked early for two decades. Tata Group, our timeline
  4. 1998–2000 · Indica and Tetley (vijay). The Indica was the first car designed and built in India. In 2000 Tata Tea bought Tetley for $431 million: the small company bought the big brand. Tata Group, our timeline · Britannica (Ratan Tata)
  5. 2007 · Corus (anubhav). Tata Steel bought the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker for about $12 billion, more than half of it borrowed, a year before the 2008 crash. The European business weighed on the group for years. The price paid at the top of the cycle stays with you. Quartz, 30 Mar 2016 · Britannica (Ratan Tata)
  6. 2008 · Jaguar Land Rover (vijay). Bought from Ford for $2.3 billion at the bottom of the cycle. Buy when the seller must sell. Britannica (Ratan Tata)
  7. 2008–2018 · Singur and the Nano (anubhav). The Nano plant left Singur in West Bengal in Oct 2008 after protests over land and moved to Sanand in Gujarat. The Supreme Court quashed the Singur acquisition in 2016. The ₹1 lakh car sold poorly and production ended in 2018. In 2023 an arbitral tribunal awarded Tata Motors ₹766 crore with interest. Land and consent are part of the business plan. And “cheapest” is a stigma, not a position. Wikipedia (Singur controversy) · RushLane, 4 Jul 2018
  8. 2016–2021 · The Mistry episode (both). Cyrus Mistry was removed as chairman in Oct 2016. He warned of about $18 billion of possible write-downs in legacy businesses. In 2021 the Supreme Court upheld his removal. Succession is the hardest deal a group makes. Winning in court is not the same as healing. Onmanorama, 26 Mar 2021 · Gulf News, Oct 2016
  9. Jan 2022 · Air India comes home (vijay). Tata took back the airline JRD founded. Vistara merged into it in Nov 2024 with Singapore Airlines holding 25.1%. Tata Group, our timeline · Business Today, 8 Oct 2021 · Wikipedia (Vistara)
  10. 2023–2026 · Phones and chips (vijay). Tata became India’s first iPhone maker by buying Wistron’s Bengaluru plant in 2023 and bought 60% of Pegatron’s India unit in 2025. Its fab at Dholera with Taiwan’s PSMC, an investment of up to ₹91,000 crore, is India’s first commercial semiconductor fab. Buy a capability, then scale it. GSMArena, Nov 2023 · TechCrunch, 24 Jan 2025 · Tata Group, the Dholera fab
  11. 12 Jun 2025 · AI171 (anubhav). An Air India Boeing 787 bound for London crashed at Ahmedabad. 260 people died and one passenger survived. The government told Parliament in Jul 2026 that no fuel-switch defect had been found. The final report is awaited. The group pledged ₹1 crore to each family. A DGCA audit later found seven serious lapses at the airline. A turnaround is judged on safety first. Al Jazeera, 12 Jun 2026 · Business Standard, 29 Jul 2026 · Tata Group, chairman’s message, Jun 2025 · The Week, 29 Jul 2025
  12. Sep–Oct 2025 · JLR and the demerger (both). A cyberattack stopped JLR’s factories for about five weeks and cost it £196 million. In Oct 2025 Tata Motors split into a passenger car company and a commercial vehicle company. BleepingComputer, 15 Nov 2025 · Business Standard, Nov 2025
  13. 2025–2026 · A contest at the top (anubhav). Differences between Tata Trusts and the Tata Sons board grew from late 2025. In Aug 2026 Chandrasekaran said he would not seek another term. In Sep 2026 the board reappointed him on a casting vote, with Noel Tata voting against. The Trusts call the vote void and are preparing a court challenge. Unresolved as of Oct 2026. The Week, 29 Oct 2025 · The News Minute, Aug 2026 · IANS, 3 Oct 2026 · Business Today, 21 Sep 2026

The trusts behind the companies.

Institutions
The Indian Institute of Science (1909), the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (1936), Tata Memorial Hospital (1941) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1945, with Homi Bhabha). Tata Group, our timeline
Measured
A 2021 EdelGive–Hurun list named Jamsetji Tata the largest philanthropist of the past century, at $102.4 billion in today’s value. Business Today, 24 Jun 2021

What a founder can take from it.

  • Own the long horizon. Steel, power, science and software were each bets that took a generation. The trust structure let the group wait.
  • Buy at the bottom, not the top. Corus in 2007 and JLR in 2008 were bought a year apart. The timing of each shaped its next decade.
  • Consent is a cost line. Singur cost the Nano its first home and its launch. Budget for the people who live on the land.
  • Plan succession while you can. Two of the group’s hardest moments since 2016 have been about who leads it.

What each side says.

Four lines the group is known for.