What should we start with — markets or a tribute to the great man RNT?
N Jayakumar: I think markets at the end of the day are a subset of various actions, various endeavours of various groups, etc. But I think the person we are talking about today is way, way, way beyond all. I think an institution, a group that has been credited for, let us say having set up virtually the first company in every sector that we can think of, whether it is steel, whether it is software, whether it is hotels, whether it is a social sciences institute, charity, the entire thing about corporate governance, the ambition of capitalism, along with the soft hand of social impact, I mean, I do not believe, forget India, I think the world has seen the passing of a true generation, I would say, it is not even a legacy, it is a way, way beyond that. What made Tata Group so different and special? There is no other parallel in the world for a company or for a group from stall to steel, from aviation to semiconductor, from software to now moving into semiconductors, what makes this group so special because the world is moving today towards specialisation, great companies like NVIDIA and Microsoft, they are very specialist and niche focused companies. But here is a group which is expanding and it is expanding into new businesses, which is so extraordinary.
N Jayakumar: I think the beauty is that each company is super specialised and a dominant player and an industry leader, and taking steps which we have not seen before. I mean, going out of the country and making $10 billion acquisitions of auto companies in Europe or for instance, a steel company in UK, I mean these are not things that people could even imagine could happen out of India, had it not been for RNT.
So, the way I see this is that if you do the sort of super specialised corporate activity, with just basic governance, and these guys actually had exceptionally higher levels of governance, the people in the group, I mean, forget the founders whose visions that these specialists or these CEOs of different companies are embodying.
But the reality is, if you do the right thing in business and do it rightly, the correct way, profits will follow. So, I do not believe that ever you see a Tata management not talking about market cap, return on capital, etc, but above all it is assumed other groups may not make it out to be a virtue. The Tatas have actually assumed and taken for granted that the only way to do things right is the right way and I think that is the big thing that supporting charities, supporting children with cancer, I mean, these things have just come as a natural consequence of their corporate activity or their natural consequences of their activity.
This has not been something that has had to be told to them or has had to be steeped into their system, they used to talk about the TAS, the Tata Administration, in the good old 80s and 90s, and the kind of people who used to come out of that, the industrial leaders, and that talks about the stellar qualities that they had during their training there, that some of the finest leaders in the country came from their corporate leaders.
So, all credit to the group and we will certainly miss but I think we need to savour the legacy and that is the important thing as we move.
Which are the Tata Group of companies which are good, but mature in terms of business curve? Which are the Tata Group companies which would be compounding for next few years? And which are some of the Tata Group companies which are young, agile, and really could be the high growth businesses for the Tata group?
N Jayakumar: It has its organic growth that is reasonably mature. It is extremely, really competitive sort of landscape, as also is the auto company. Perhaps the unshackling of JLR from the CV and PV businesses of India may bring about a new giant in the world if you will.
And apart from that, the power is a growing business, especially with entry into green power. Hotels is a good business growing with multiple formats coming through. New exciting businesses could well be in the tech space. And not to forget Trent, which has surprised everybody with becoming the sort of the latest and the most exciting kid on the block.
But do not forget the TCS kind of story where solid cash flows allow you to keep reinventing yourself and TCS could produce several surprises for us over the years and their entry into various aspects of technology, including now AI, could actually change and refashion the company quite a bit. But the Tata Elxsi of the world, Tata Technologies, are potentially the new age players and maybe their foray into things like telecom infrastructure and so on and so forth.
So, I think there are spaces, but one good thing about the Tatas is their ability to manage the mature businesses and embody and embrace the new age businesses. I think that has been the hallmark of the group. All this in a backdrop of integrity, humility and gratitude.
Your memory really of Ratan Tata, I mean, they always say that we remain immortal in the memories that we leave behind in the people. What is the one thing that you would remember him with?
N Jayakumar: I think many senses, he defined everything that we in our lifetime would have wanted to achieve which is establishing industries, creating categories, creating companies, and yet having the soft hand which very silently did what was right and in a very simple way, the sort of doing things right leads to profit is not easily understood. People assume they have to do something different, people assume they have to do something not so straight and have to be extra clever.
Whereas I think, he embodied the fact that, and I remember this always that continuously without actually having to ever be asked, they would keep doing the right thing. You could fault them at times on decisions taken too early in the game, maybe risks that played out much more in the short run, but over a longer period of time they handled it. Their handling of mergers, amalgamations.
I mean, it has just been something that case studies are not written about, but seen and experienced. It is one of those things where you say that the previous generation would have been in admiration and awe of Ratan Tata.
We would have been looking and saying this is the kind of group to invest in and the next generation would find any number of attributes to say that I know several youngsters who bumped into Ratan Tata at a Trent store or something, had a chat with him, had a coffee with him and moved on as if he was one other person. Much like the way the industrialists and tycoons, if you will, in the West, the entrepreneurs meet you in a walk down in California or whatever.
I mean, there is humility personified. I mean, I just think we need to be grateful for this kind of a group, which is just set the standards on almost all corporate governance parameters.
But I also think that it is almost poetic tribute that the last two years have seen a 21-gun salute in terms of the markets rewarding, but more importantly, saluting this group.
They say that markets see things coming and maybe they did not see the end coming, but they definitely saw the reason to salute a group as India marches ahead on an unheard of, unprecedented, and almost fantastic sort of bull market.
And what better tribute to a person while he was alive of as I call it a 21-gun tribute in terms of all guns firing in terms of Tata Groups re-rating. I think to me that is really the sort of stuff that, stories end with, and they sort of happily celebrated ever after kind of thing. So, this is a legacy that we should savour and celebrate and move on.