Cyrus Mistry on Tuesday denied being a “hands-off” chairman of Tata Consultancy Services and Jaguar Land Rover adding that Ratan Tata had once pitched for selling TCS to IBM which was a "near death experience" for Tata Group's crown jewel.
In a fresh statement issued by Mistry’s office today, the sacked chairman of Tata Sons said that Ratan Tata had once approached JRD Tata with a proposal from IBM to buyout TCS.
FC Kohli, the then head of TCS was suffering from a cardiac condition and JRD had refused to discuss the deal while Kohli was still in the hospital, the statement said.
“On his return, Mr. Kohli assured JRD that TCS had a bright future and the group should not sell the company. JRD Tata turned down the offer, demonstrating true vision. But, it was also a neardeath experience for TCS at the hands of Mr. Ratan Tata,” it said.
Responding to Tata Sons statement of November 10 saying Cyrus Mistry had made no “material contributions” to success of TCS and JLR, Mistry said, “It is important to set the record straight since insinuations and leaks are being made explicitly to create an illusion that Mistry was a "hands off" Chairman and TCS/JLR were on "auto-pilot" during his leadership.”
Mistry said that blaming him for not contributing to TCS and JLR success is an "illusion".
Mistry has also blamed Ratan Tata for the Corus deal at a high price saying that the then Chairman’s "ego" was responsible for it.
“It is common knowledge that the decision to acquire Corus for over USD 12 billion, when only a year earlier it was available at less than half that price, was based on one man’s ego and against the reservations of some board members and senior executives. The overpayment made it harder to invest in the acquired assets which had been neglected, and thereby, placed many jobs at risk,” Mistry statement said.
The Tata Sons and Cyrus Mistry have issued a slew of statements against each other since the latter was removed from company’s Chairman post in October.
