Tata group profits grew 35% under me, Mistry to NCLT

Mistry was responding to charges made by the Tatas that group was underperforming during his tenure

Ousted Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry has said the group's profits grew 35 per cent, compounded annually, during his tenure as chief even as the valuation of Tata Sons' portfolio companies beat the BSE index by five per cent.

In his reply to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mistry said the market value of group firms increased by Rs 3,26,000 crore between 2013 and October 2016 despite tough economic conditions and legacy issues due to “wrong acquisitions” during Ratan Tata’s tenure as chairman. 

Mistry was responding to charges made by the Tatas that the group was underperforming during Mistry’s tenure.

NCLT had asked Mistry to file a separate affidavit in his personal capacity, along with the investment firms Cyrus Investments and Sterling Investment Corporation.

Mistry’s petition said the Tata group’s three-year profit before tax growth in dollar terms was 13 per cent, which it said was far higher than the average of the 25 largest global companies. During Mistry’s tenure, the Tata brand value increased by $5 billion, he said.

Mistry said the Tata group made investments without any increase in the group’s net debt in dollar terms.

In the past one year, he said the group had filed more than 2,000 patents, an increase of nearly 100 per cent from what it was three years earlier.

Mistry said during his tenure the cash flow to the trusts improved on account of a special dividend that he got authorised from Tata Consultancy Services and the purchase of Tata Capital shares from Tata Trusts. These shares were earlier gifted to Tata Trusts by Tata Sons. This led to an additional profit of Rs 460 crore for the trusts, he said.

NCLT will hear the petition on January 31. Tata Sons, in its petition filed as respondents at the NCLT, on January 10 had alleged that Mistry seemed focused only on the problems from the past, blamed them on “legacy issues” and didn’t do enough to resolve them. “Even after identifying these hot-spots, the execution and follow-through on these matters was slow and lacked a sense of urgency,” Tata Sons said in its petition.