Tata’s global dream turns nasty

“Be prepared for hard decisions,” Tata group chairman Ratan Tata warned in a New Year letter addressed to 350,000 Tata employees worldwide, acknowledging the unprecedented troubled times facing the 140-year-old Tata dynasty, one of Asia’s oldest and most respected conglomerates.

The challenges faced at Bombay House, the stately 84-year-old corporate home of the Tatas in the Indian financial center of Mumbai, must be unprecedented: Tata Motors is struggling to raise funds in the capital market, thousands of Tata workers face lay-offs, factories are being shut down, supposedly temporarily, top executives are considering taking pay cuts and newly

acquired iconic car brands Jaguar and Land Rover look to European government bailouts for survival.
Tata group’s global revenues from its 98 companies were estimated at US$62.5 billion in the 2007-08 fiscal year, according to company figures; over 60% came from overseas business. That made sense when the world economy was driving ahead on all cylinders. Now it leaves the group well exposed to the global downturn.

Rata Tata, a 71-year-old never-married bachelor and reclusive billionaire, called the current economic crisis the worst “we have faced in our living history”. But the turmoil that is challenging his business empire cannot entirely be pegged to recession and currency fluctuations.

Asia Times