Tata Sons’ Chief Ethics Officer Mukund Rajan, 49, has announced his departure from the organisation citing personal reasons. Rajan’s exit was highly speculated in the media following reports that a consortium led by Mukund and backed by a US-based investment group TPG Capital has bid to buy the assets of loss-making Tata Teleservices.
In a press statement issued on Thursday, the company said Rajan, the brother of former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, will leave the group to evaluate entrepreneurial pursuits. “Rajan and Tata Sons have mutually agreed that Dr Rajan will leave the services of Tata Sons on March 31, 2018,” the press note stated.
Rajan’s appointment was the first major announcement after Cyrus Mistry took over the reins of Tata Sons from Ratan Tata in December 2012. The former managing director of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, was made the group spokesperson and brand custodian in February 2013.
He was also an integral part of the Group Executive Council (GEC) set up by Mistry in April 2013. The council was set up to provide strategic and operational support to Mistry. The GEC was disbanded after Mistry moved out of the group.
Rajan, who has been with Tata Group for over 23 years, was the youngest director appointed for some of the major Tata subsidiaries, including Tata Teleservices Limited and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL). He worked with three Tata Chairmen – Ratan Tata, Cyrus Mistry, and N. Chandrasekaran. Chandrasekaran had appointed him as the head of international operations.
He has also served as the Managing Partner of the Tata Opportunities Fund, and Brand Custodian and Member of the Group Executive Council at the Tata group.
The press statement said: “Tata Sons thanks Rajan for his distinguished services in various leadership roles over a period of 23 years.”
In January, Bloomberg reported that Tata Group may soon sell the assets of loss-making Tata Teleservices, which recently sold its mobile business to Airtel. The consortium, led by Mukund and comprising several executives of Tata Group placed bid to buy the Tata Tele enterprise for around $1 billion, the report had said.
Another player who could also bid for Tata Teleservices is its sister company Tata telecommunications, which in the past had said it was interested in buying the enterprises’ fixed-line business. If that happens, TPG-backed consortium could face competition in closing the deal.
Tata Teleservices owns optical transmission network of over 113,000km across the country. If the deal happens, the company, already suffering from huge debt burden, could repay some of its debt of Rs 28,000 crore.
