If you happen to be an avid watcher
of Dalal Street, it may not surprise
you to know which Indian corporate group's firms' stocks have delivered
eye-popping returns. Any guesses? No brownie points for right guesses.
Indeed, it is Tatas. What is however surprising is that the spectacular
performances which pumped up their stock prices to record highs this year and
delivered triple digit returns is the amazing tale of some turnaround
stories which the group achieved through sheer vision, smart strategies,
augmented well by the recovery in the global economy. But first let's go back in
time to understand how and when the globe trotting at Tatas began.
Circa 2000, at a time when several MNCs were desperately looking to
either enter or consolidate their presence in India, there was this
homegrown group, founded by the legendary JRD Tata and shaped up well by the
maverick Ratan Tata, the current Chairman, which was thinking of going
global. Surely, at that time, not many domestic firms would have nurtured such
ambitions and skeptics, for sure, would not have hoped the group to stand a
chance against giant transnational corporations from the US, Europe, and
Japan. However, rebuffing such pessimism, the sheer determination and grit shown
by the top leadership of the group saw the group firms like Tata Tea (now
Tata Global Beverages), which became the first from the Tata stable to latch
onto the global takeover bandwagon by acquiring UK's top tea brand Tetley in
the year 2000, Tata Coffee, which lapped up Eight O'Clock Coffee, America's
best-selling whole bean coffee brand in 2006, and not many people would either
know or would have probably forgotten relatively small yet significant
acquisitions like Tata Teleservices' purchase of Hughes Telecom in 2002,
Indian Hotels' acquisition of Regent Hotel in 2002 and Tata Motors' takeover
of Korea's Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company in 2004. Then came the
big moment in the life of the group when not just the shareholders but even
the entire country too watched in awe how Tata Steel pulled a sort of a miracle
as it snatched the prized catch in the form of Corus, the world's leading steel
producer, almost from the jaws of defeat at the hands of Brazil's CSN. This
was in 2007. A year later, it pulled another surprise when the group firm Tata
Motors outbid other global rivals to acquire two marque yet
loss-making brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, collectively called JLR, from Ford
Motors. The last two big-bang acquisitions were more than huge in terms of
acquisition cost (it paid $12 bn and $2.3 bn, respectively to acquire Corus
and JLR).
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