Tata Sons to merge aerospace and defence business under one entity

Tata Sons on Wednesday said it is in the process of consolidating its various businesses across aerospace and defence sectors under a single entity Tata Aerospace & Defence (Tata A&D).

The necessary statutory and regulatory approvals are in the process of being obtained in this regard, the company said in a release.

Tata A&D proposes to bring together over 6,000 employees, and have production facilities in Telangana, Karnataka, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra, it added.

"The formation of Tata A&D, a single unified entity, will allow us to better target emerging opportunities in aerospace and defence, and engage holistically with customers both in India and globally," Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran was quoted as saying in the release.

Subsequent to the consolidation, Tata A&D will draw synergies from entities across the group, including Tata Motors' defence division, TAL Manufacturing Solutions Limited (subsidiary of Tata Motors), Tata Power's strategic engineering division, Tata Advanced Materials Limited, and Tata Advanced Systems Limited, the release said.

Tata A&D proposes to leverage its full range of expertise, experience, and capabilities from across the group related to land mobility solutions, aerospace, weapon systems, sensors and command, control, communication, computers and intelligence (C4I).

The company said that the combined entity will also be deeply invested in the development of indigenous platforms uniquely suited for the Indian defence forces, which is central to new entity's long-term strategy.

According to the release, several companies proposed to be forming part of Tata A&D already have strong, established partnerships with leading aerospace and defence firms and are part of the global supply chain, and in some instances, they are also a global single source provider.

Banmali Agrawala, president for infrastructure, defence and aerospace at Tata Sons said Tata A&D when formed, will be better equipped to execute larger and more complex projects and be more globally competitive as part of the global supply chain.

"We have moved beyond providing individual products to develop integrated offerings across land mobility, airborne platforms and systems, as well as weapons systems and C4I," he added.