India's Tata has ousted Cyrus Mistry as a director of its cash cow IT business Tata Consultancy Services as the Indian conglomerate steps up its purge of its former chairman. TCS said in a statement late on Tuesday that shareholders had voted overwhelmingly at an extraordinary general meeting in India's commercial Mumbai to dump Mistry from its board.
In the statement to the National Stock Exchange of India it said that Mistry is "hereby removed from the office of Director of the Company with effect from the date of this meeting".
Mistry was unceremoniously sacked in October as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of India's most famous family conglomerate - the $103 billion steel-to-salt Tata Group. The shock move saw company patriarch Ratan Tata reassert his authority over the sprawling group. Tata Sons has called for its operating companies to hold EGMs to oust Mistry from their various boards. TCS was the latest, and biggest, to do so.
Tata Industries removed Mistry as director on Monday. Other group companies including Indian Hotels Co Ltd, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, and Tata Chemicals are scheduled to hold EGM's in the next week to decide Mistry's fate. TCS said that more than 93 percent of shareholders present at the EGM voted to oust Mistry. Mistry was sacked as head of Tata Sons on October 24 with Ratan Tata unhappy at the way Mistry was leading the company.
The 78-year-old Tata, who led the group for more than two decades, has taken interim charge until a successor is found. The pair have traded barbs since Mistry's ouster, plunging the group into bitter infighting with directors firmly placed in either camp. The Tata Group was founded under British colonial rule in 1868. It operates in more than 100 countries and owns high-profile companies such as Britain's Tetley Tea and Anglo-Dutch steel firm Corus.
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