The upcoming IPO of Tata Projects is a major boost to Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata and a testament to his leadership skills, as the news of the public listing comes barely months after he was picked by the board to lead Tata Trusts.
Tata Projects is set to become the first Tata Group company to launch an IPO, since November 2023, when Tata Technologies Ltd, had launched its initial public offering (IPO) and became the first Tata Group firm to go public, after Tata Consultancy Services in 2004, a gap of nearly 19 years.
According to reports, Tata Projects, the conglomerate’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm, is set to go public within the next 12-18 months. “The aim is to become ‘fit’ in this period (12-18 months)…it is about cash and if we are able to generate 4-5% cash on our revenue, that’s actually the highest metric of fitness,” an Economic Times report quoted Tata Projects MD and CEO, Vinayak Pai as saying.
Pai, however, cleared that the coming IPO was not a “hard target” for the company which was more focused on obtaining financial fitness.
The Tata Projects CEO had earlier announced that the company expects to double its order intake to Rs 20,000 crore in the current fiscal year, and is focused on growing its revenue in the low-mid double-digit range while raising net profit in high double-digits. Tata Projects current order book outstanding is at over Rs 40,000 crore, as per the ET report.
Tata Sons is the majority shareholder in Tata Projects, holding a 57.31% stake, while other shareholders include Tata Power (30.81%), Tata Chemicals (6.16%), Voltas (4.3%) and Tata Industries (1.42%).
Major boost for Noel Tata
The upcoming IPO of Tata Projects is a major boost to Tata Trusts Chairman Noel Tata and a testament to his leadership skills, as the news of the public listing comes barely months after he was picked by the board to lead Tata Trusts.
Tata Trusts, which a 66 percent stake in Tata Sons, the holding company which runs the Tata Group, essentially owns the conglomerate, making Noel Tata the single most powerful person in the Rs 34 lakh crore Tata business empire.
The Tata Group, established by its founder Jamshedji Nasirwanji Tata in 1868 when he bought a bankrupt oil mill for Rs 21,000, a massive amount at the time, and turned it into a cotton factory, has today grown into a global juggernaut with over 100 companies spread in more than 100 countries, boasting a market cap of $403 billion (roughly Rs 33.7 trillion).