It was 1999, just a year since Tata Motors, the country's largest truck and bus maker, had made ambitious forays into the passenger car market with the Indica hatchback. But, things were not going to plan. Despite a lot of initial euphoria, sales were not so great. That was when the company led by Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata himself approached US car giant Ford to sell the struggling car business.
Ford officials reportedly questioned Tata's decision to start the passenger car division and said they would be doing a favour by buying it. Perhaps humiliated, Tata never went ahead with the deal. The tables turned in almost a decade later when Tata Motors acquired the luxury Jaguar Land Rover business from the same Ford in 2008.
Praveen Kadle, a long-time Tata Group veteran would recall years later, how Bill Ford, the Ford chairman thanked Ratan Tata, for doing them a big favour by buying JLR.
Jaguar Land Rover marked a watershed moment for Tata Motors. Up until then Tata Motors was a small car company, targeting the masses. In 2008 only, it had launched the Rs 1 lakh car Nano. It had been a dream of Tata to launch an affordable car for the masses. The acquisition of the marquee British brands Jaguar and Land Rover propelled Tata Motors into a formidable player in the global luxury car market. It was among the most ambitious acquisitions by the Tata Group.
But, the first major acquisition under Tata's chairmanship was a decade earlier. Tata Tea, over the 1980s and 1990s was transforming from a tea plantation company to a branded tea company. But, it still lagged the much larger Unilever at that time. Opportunity knocked Tata's doors when Britain's best tea brand Tetley was put up for sale in 2000. Tata snapped up at the opportunity to acquire the company that had invented tea bags. The audacious buyout of Tetley, which was then twice the size of Tata Tea put the Tata brand on the global map.
Tata had earlier in 1995 tried to acquire Tetley, but was unsuccessful given the size of the deal. When opportunity knocked back in 2000, Tata and RK Krishna Kumar, the MD of Tata Tea then, were not going to let it pass.
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"It was a defining and historic moment. Tata Tea had created history by acquiring a global brand and business several times its size. It had created history for itself, for the Tata Group and for India," recalled Tata group veteran Harish Bhat in 2020.
There was no looking back after that. Tata Tea followed up the acquisition of Tetley by buying Eight O'Clock Coffee, Good Earth Tea in the USA, Jemca in the Czech Republic and Vitax in Poland over the next few years. In the 2000s, Tata Tea had transformed into Tata Global Beverages. Today, it is known as Tata Consumer Products.
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Tata Tea was not the only Tata firm venturing overseas. Under the chairmanship of Tata, Daewoo Commercial vehicles was acquired by Tata Motors in 2004, Corus Steel was acquired by Tata Steel in 2007 and Tata Chemicals bought British Salt in 2010. Other major acquisitions by Tata Group companies during the time included NatSteel in Singapore and Millennium Steel in Thailand by Tata Steel, Tyco Global Networks by Tata Communications in the US and General Chemical Industrial Products by Tata Chemicals.
“I hope that a hundred years from now we will spread our wings far beyond India, that we become a global group, operating in many countries, an Indian business conglomerate that is at home in the world, carrying the same sense of trust that we do today,” Tata said in 2004.
Many of Tata's acquisitions have stood the test of time and today have made Tata a household name across continents, at the same time propelling Indian industry to global heights.
