Tata Sons may remove age limit for Tata Trusts nominees on its board

Age cap may go for Tata Trusts' nominees

Tata Sons, the holding company of the salt-to-software group, is likely to remove the age limit for Tata Trusts nominees on its board, it is learnt. Till now, a Trusts nominee had to retire from the Tata Sons board at 70 years of age, though there’s never a fixed tenure for that position unlike in the case of an independent director.

The latest change implies permanent  seats to the nominee directors on Tata Sons board unless recalled by Tata Trusts, sources said. A trustee or a nominee cannot be on the board of any other Tata group company. 
 

An email sent to Tata Sons did not elicit any response till the time of going to press.

At present, Venu Srinivasan of the TVS group represents Tata Trusts on the Tata Sons board. Former bureaucrat and vice-chairman of Tata Trusts Vijay Singh is also expected to join the Tata Sons board with the changes in the retirement age. This will be Singh’s second stint on the Tata Sons board after he retired in 2018 on turning 70. Srinivasan would also continue on Tata Sons board after December when he will turn 70, if the change in age norm comes into effect. Tata Trusts, the largest shareholder of Tata Sons with 66 per cent stake in it, can nominate one third of the trustees on the board of the holding company, as per the articles of association of Tata Sons -- a private unlisted company.

In another development, Noel Tata was inducted into the Sir Dorabji Tata and Allied Trust board last week. He was earlier appointed as a trustee on the board of Sir Ratan Tata Trust in 2019. With Noel Tata joining the boards of two main Tata Trusts, he is expecting to play  an important role in future, according to insiders.

In 2011, Tata Sons had lowered the retirement age of its non-executive directors from 75 years to 70 years — thus cutting short tenure of several directors. This was impleme­n­t­ed at that time at the recomm­endation of the selection committee which was tasked with finding a successor to Ratan Tata who was retiring in 2012.

In 2012, Cyrus Mistry took over from Tata as the group chairman. Mistry was removed by the Tata Sons board in October 2016. He appealed against Tata Sons in the Supreme Court but lost the legal battle last year.