Parsi Khabar is saddedned to hear about the passing away of Cyrus Mistry, past Chairman of Tata & Sons and head of the SP Group. He was in a car along with three others returning to Mumbai from Udvada. Along with him Jehangir Pundole also passed away. The other two passengers Dr. Anahita Pundole and Darius Pundole are in critical state in the hospital
Cyrus Mistry, the 54-year-old former chairman of Indian conglomerate Tata Sons, died in a road accident near financial capital Mumbai on Sunday, Indian police said.
Mistry was ousted as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the $300-billion salt-to-software Tata conglomerate, in a boardroom coup in 2016, sparking a long-drawn-out legal tussle on which India’s top court eventually ruled in Tata Group’s favour.
Article by Rupam Jain | Reuters
The accident took place in Palghar, located about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Mumbai, on Sunday afternoon. Mistry was travelling to Mumbai from Gujarat with three others, B. Patil, the top police official in Palghar district, said.
A senior Mumbai police official said the car in which Mistry was travelling had rammed into a divider, and that he had died at the accident site.
Several prominent politicians and industrialists tweeted their condolences after news of Mistry’s passing was reported. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Mistry’s demise untimely and shocking.
“He was a promising business leader who believed in India’s economic prowess. His passing away is a big loss to the world of commerce and industry,” Modi tweeted.
Mistry’s family and Tata Sons did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Mistry was the sixth chairman of the Tata group, a conglomerate started over 150 years ago, and the second not named Tata. He was the brother-in-law of Noel Tata, half-brother of Mistry’s predecessor as chair Ratan Tata.
Mistry’s grandfather first bought shares in Tata Sons in the 1930s. The Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group, founded by Mistry’s father, currently holds a near 18% stake, making it the largest single shareholder in a firm mostly controlled by trusts.
The decades-long relationship between SP Group, one of the country’s largest construction firms, and Tata Group was strained following his sacking, and SP Group has since been looking to “separate its interests” from Tata Sons.
Fund managers Reuters spoke to at the time of Mistry’s appointment described him as little-known in business circles.
A graduate in civil engineering from London’s Imperial College and in management from the London Business School, Mistry described himself as a voracious reader of business books and golfer, and shared his family’s love of horses.
SP Group did not immediately respond to Reuters requests seeking comment on Mistry’s death.
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Cyrus Mistry, scion of one of India’s most illustrious business families and who also formerly headed the nation’s biggest business group, died in a road accident near Mumbai. He was 54.
The car Mistry was in hit a divider on a bridge in Palghar at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, local police confirmed. Mistry and another passenger were killed, while two others injured have been shifted to hospital, assistant police inspector Balasaheb Yamgar said by phone.
Article by P R Sanjani in Fortune
The news is the latest blow for the Mistry family, whose patriarch Pallonji Mistry—Cyrus’s father—died in June at the age of 93. Their Shapoorji Pallonji Group was founded in 1865 and built luxury hotels, stadiums, palaces and factories across Asia, including the tower wing of the iconic Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai. But the Mistrys were most recently known for a feud with the Tata Group.
Pallonji Mistry had accumulated a net worth of almost $29 billion at the time of his death, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him one of the richest men in India. Most of the family wealth, however, derived from being the largest minority shareholder—18.5% as of early 2022—in Mumbai-based Tata Sons Pvt., the main investment holding company for India’s largest conglomerate.
The untimely demise of Shri Cyrus Mistry is shocking. He was a promising business leader who believed in India’s economic prowess. His passing away is a big loss to the world of commerce and industry. Condolences to his family and friends. May his soul rest in peace.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 4, 2022
Cyrus Mistry was named chairman of Tata Sons in 2012, becoming only the second top official not to bear the Tata family name. His shock ouster in 2016 triggered a very public, years-long courtroom and boardroom battle between two of India’s most storied corporate clans.
The country’s top court ruled in 2021 that Cyrus’s ouster was legal and also upheld Tata Sons’s rules on minority shareholder rights, which made it difficult to sell shares without board approval. That meant the stake, worth almost $30 billion in early 2022, was basically illiquid.
Cyrus’s older brother, Shapoor Mistry, is chairman of the SP Group. The siblings in 2018 set up venture capital firm Mistry Ventures LLP.
Cyrus Mistry is survived by his wife Rohiqa and their two sons.
—With assistance by Ashutosh Joshi