Cyrus Mistry's Letter to the Tata Sons Board: What the Leaked 2016 Letter Said

One day after the Tata Sons board voted him out as chairman, Cyrus Mistry fired back with an explosive letter to the board — leaked to the press on October 25, 2016. The letter, reported at the time by the Indian press, made two headline charges: a looming $18 billion write-down across the group's troubled businesses, and a breakdown in corporate governance at the top.

The $18 billion warning

Mistry warned that a "realistic assessment" of the fair value of five "legacy hotspots" — Indian Hotels (IHCL), Tata Motors' passenger-vehicle business, Tata Steel Europe, Tata Power's Mundra plant, and the telecom business — "could potentially result in a write down over time of about Rs 118,000 crore ($18 billion)." He added that the capital employed in these businesses had risen from Rs 132,000 crore to Rs 196,000 crore, "close to the networth of the group which is at Rs 174,000 crore."

The governance allegations

Mistry wrote that he was addressing the board "to emphasise the total lack of corporate governance and to point out the failure on the part of the directors to discharge the fiduciary duty" owed to stakeholders. He said interference had pushed him "into the position of a 'lame duck' chairman," and that his sudden removal without explanation had done his reputation and the group's "immeasureable [sic] harm."

The quotations above are short excerpts from the letter as reported by the Indian press in October 2016; the full text was widely published at the time.

For the story behind this letter, see Why Cyrus Mistry Was Ousted as Tata Sons Chairman.