14 September,2026 02:47 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Representational Image. File pic.
Tata Sons, the holding company of the USD 180-billion revenue Tata conglomerate, is likely to hold a board meeting on September 17 to discuss various issues including potential listing, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rejected its application to surrender its core investment company (CIC) registration, according to news agency IANS.
The Board meeting comes at a time when incumbent Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran has resigned ruling himself out for another term upon the end of his current tenure on February 20, 2027.
Tata Sons had sought de-registration in March 2024 after becoming debt free to avoid the listing requirement that applies to upper layer non banking financial companies (NBFCs). However, the regulator's latest decision means the holding company faces the mandatory listing.
Despite being a CIC, Tata Sons had exposure to bank debt as it had borrowed money on behalf of its group companies, as some were relatively new or did not have strong enough credit profiles to borrow cheaply on their own. At the request of the banks, it also acted as a guarantor for some of the subsidiaries while charging them a fee. Because of these interconnected financial arrangements, the RBI wanted greater regulatory oversight and transparency by treating Tata Sons as a Core Investment Company (CIC) under the NBFC framework.
The RBI had classified Tata Sons as an upper layer NBFC in September 2022, with such entities required to list within three years, with the original deadline of September 30, 2025 for Tata Sons. However, Tata Sons wanted to remain a privately held company and had sought to exit the NBFC framework before that deadline, by repaying more than Rs 21,000 crore of debt in 2024. The company had applied to surrender its registration, seeking to operate as an unregulated holding company but the regulator kept the application pending and continued to include Tata Sons in its upper layer NBFC lists.
The RBI introduced a scale-based regulatory framework for NBFCs in October 2021, sorting lenders into base, middle, upper and top layers with progressively stricter oversight. The revised RBI norms effective June 2026 said any NBFC with assets of Rs 1 lakh crore or more sits in the upper layer and Tata Sons with its standalone assets of over Rs 2 lakh crore as of March 2026 falls under this bracket.
The meeting also comes at a time when the company, for the first time in its history had adjourned its annual general meeting (AGM) on August 18, due to lack of quorum.
Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT), the two key philanthropic bodies within the wider Tata Trusts that collectively own over 51 per cent in the holding company, were unable to nominate a representative which led to the lack of quorum and the adjournment of an AGM.
(With inputs from IANS and PTI)
