Tata board meets next week; may skip talks on Chandra's term, listing

Upcoming Tata Trusts and Tata Sons board meetings are expected to focus on routine matters, with no immediate decision likely on Chandra's tenure or listing plans

Two Tata board meetings next week are expected to keep industry watchers busy, but indications as of now are that both may focus only on routine matters.

 

The boards of Tata Trusts and Tata Sons will meet on June 8 and June 12, respectively. Although neither has come out with an agenda yet, sources said big-ticket items are unlikely to figure.

 

A decision on third term for Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran (Chandra as he’s called) and a potential stock exchange listing of Tata Sons are among the top issues at the salt-to-software conglomerate. While a call on whether Tata Sons, the holding company of the group, should list will be taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), a formal discussion on Chandra’s tenure is not expected at any of these two meetings, according to sources. Chandra’s second five-year term as executive chairman of Tata Sons is until February 2027.

 

 

Tata Trusts, which is the largest shareholder of Tata Sons with around 66 per cent stake, would discuss renewal of Chandra’s term before Tata Sons board takes it up, one of the sources said.

 

A July 2025 resolution of Tata Trusts had backed a third five-year term as executive chairman for Chandra.

 

In a February 2026 Tata Sons board meeting, Tata Trusts chairman and nominee director at Tata Sons, Noel Tata, had raised questions around the profitability of companies such as Tata Digital and Air India, while linking the same to whether Chandra will get a third term.

 

Since the Tata Trusts board meeting on June 8 will exclude Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) as per the direction of the Maharashtra Charity Commissioner over alleged violation of the norms on perpetual trustees, review of any previous resolution or getting a new resolution passed will not be possible, a person in the know said. He was explaining why Chandra’s tenure discussion could be pushed back.

 

A special Tata Sons board meeting was called on May 26 to discuss the financials of some of the loss-making Tata group entities. This came as a follow up to the February meeting when Noel Tata had raised questions about these entities. Chief executives of several Tata companies made presentations before the Tata Sons board during a marathon meeting last week. A few other CEOs would present their financials and strategic plans to the board soon, it is learnt.

 

Besides Chandra’s term, listing of Tata Sons has been a controversial subject with the stakeholders having divergent views on it. Tata Trusts passed a resolution in July 2025 favouring the private status of Tata Sons. More recently, the two vice-chairmen of Tata Trusts backed its listing. The second largest shareholder of Tata Sons, Shapoorji Pallonji, has expressed support for Tata Sons listing.

 

Tata Sons had in 2024 sought deregistration as an upper layer core investment company (CIC) after clearing its debt, but the RBI is yet to take a call on the matter. It had started with the RBI putting Tata Sons and some others in the upper layer CIC category in 2022, mandating a listing within three years.