Harish Bhat has been replaced by N Chandrasekaran as the chairman of Tata Global Beverages, the No 2 tea manufacturer in the world.Chandrasekaran as the chairman of Tata Global Beverages, the No 2 tea manufacturer in the world.
Tata Global was one of the Tata Group entities which was not chaired by Chandrasekaran despite him leading the group’s holding company, Tata Sons. Traditionally, the chairman of Tata Sons also heads the group’s flagship operating entities. With Tata Global under his wing, Chandra now chairs six listed entities of the group. The other five are Tata Consultancy Services, Indian Hotels, Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Tata Power.Chandrasekaran despite him leading the group’s holding company, Tata Sons. Traditionally, the chairman of Tata Sons also heads the group’s flagship operating entities. With Tata Global under his wing, Chandra now chairs six listed entities of the group. The other five are Tata Consultancy Services, Indian Hotels, Tata Steel, Tata Motors and Tata Power.
It is expected that Chandra will soon take over as the chairman of Tata Chemicals, whose board is chaired by group veteran Bhaskar Bhat.
In a notice to stock exchanges, Tata Global on Monday said that Chandra has been inducted as an additional director on the company's board and elected as chairman in place of Bhat, who sought to step down. Bhat, however, continues to be a non-executive director with the Kolkata-based company. Besides Chandra, Tata Global has appointed Siraj Azmat Chaudhry, chairman of Cargill, an agri-business giant, as an independent director on its board. The two appointments take the total strength of Tata Global's board to 10 members.
Last November, Bhat had replaced Cyrus Mistry as the chairman of the INR6,780-crore Tata Global. A majority (seven) of the 10 directors present at the board meeting had voted in favour of Bhat's chairmanship. Independent directors — Analjit Singh, founder of Max Group, and Darius Pandole, former owner of Duke's soft drinks, had opposed Mistry's removal. Singh at that time had termed the board's move to remove Mistry as 'illegal'. Subsequently, both Singh and Pandole resigned from the company.
