Recent high-profile exits from its subsidiaries may be an indication of the winds of change blowing through the Tata group, as new Chairman N Chandrasekaran embarks on a clean-up exercise to put them back on the growth path.

Since February, when Chandra took over as the Chairman of Tata Sons, at least three top ranking executives have quit the company. This includes Rakesh Sarna who stepped down as the Managing Director and CEO of Indian Hotels Co Ltd, which runs the Taj group of hotels; Ravindra Pisharody who has resigned as Executive Director (Commercial Vehicles) of Tata Motors; and Bharat Vasani, has exited as the group general counsel of the group to take up an advisory role at the Chairman office.

According to senior executives BusinessLine spoke to, there could be more exits in the coming months. “At a recent meeting with Tata Group CEOs, Chandra clearly outlined that the focus would be on growth and taking leadership. The focus is on growing profitability and this may put executives managing loss-making businesses under pressure,” said a senior Tata official on condition of anonymity.

Insiders said that Chandra’s focus on keeping Tata Motors’ market share in the commercial vehicle segment unassailable seemed to have forced Pisharody to quit.

CV dominance slipping “While the passenger vehicle segment is clawing back, Tata Motors’ presence in the commercial vehicle segment is seen as unassailable. But the company has been rapidly losing market share and Chandra wants performance,” said a market analyst.

“There was immense pressure on Pisharody since Chandra took over as group Chairman to improve numbers as the competition kept taking away market share from Tata Motors,” a company executive told BusinessLine . Tata Motors’ share of Medium and Heavy duty commercial vehicles dropped to 49 per cent in 20016-17 from 51.9 per cent in 2015-16. In heavy-duty truck segment, Tata’s share dropped to 53 per cent in 2016-17 from 58 per cent in the previous year. Overall sales for medium and heavy commercial vehicles dropped 40 per cent in May, dragging overall CV sales down by 13 per cent.

Tainted by association? Sarna, on the other hand, was appointed by former Chairman Cyrus Mistry to turn the hospitality business around. While Sarna was able to put Indian Hotels back into growth mode, his tenure was hit with allegations of sexual harassment. Besides, he was seen as being close to Mistry camp, although there was no visible proof to arrive at that conclusion.

“Just after a few weeks of Mistry’s ouster as Chairman. there were reports last year that Sarna was ready to quit. Though Indian Hotels vehemently denied this at that time, seven months later, Sarna announced his exit. You can draw conclusions,” said a former Tata executive.

Vasani, Group General Counsel of Tata Sons for the past 17 years, was caught in the crossfire in the battle between Mistry and Tata Trusts. Internal emails seen by BusinessLine reveal that he had raised corporate governance issues at Air Asia.

Emails also revealed that Vasani had expressed his displeasure with the way the dispute with NTT DoCoMo was being handled because of which he found himself “irrelevant”.

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