Cyrus Mistry
AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade
Less than three months after the death of billionaire Pallonji Mistry in June at the age of 93, his younger son Cyrus Mistry, 54, former chairman of Tata Sons, died on Sunday in a car accident in western India. He was on his way home to Mumbai from Ahmedabad city.
The soft-spoken tycoon was in a Mercedes-Benz car along with three friends. Mistry and another person died on the spot while the other two suffered serious injuries after the car crashed into a divider in Palghar district in the western state of Maharashtra. The state’s deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered an investigation of the accident.
The news of Mistry’s tragic demise on a weekend when the annual Ganesh festival celebrations were still in high gear, drew shocked reactions from all corners of the country. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled Mistry’s “shocking” death in a tweet, noting that “He was a promising business leader who believed in India’s economic prowess. His passing away is a big loss to the world of commerce and industry.”
India’s minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal tweeted that “Indian industry has lost one of its shining stars whose contributions to India’s economic progress will always be remembered.”
Several business leaders offered condolences. Billionaire auto magnate Anand Mahindra said in a tweet that he had “got to know Cyrus well during his all-too brief tenure as the head of the House of Tata. I was convinced that he was destined for greatness.” Metals and mining tycoon Anil Agarwal tweeted that “corporate India lost a promising son” while RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka tweeted that “he was a friend, a gentleman, a man of substance. He was instrumental in creating the global construction giant Shapoorji Pallonji and ably led the Tata group.”
The Mistry family is the single largest shareholder in Tata Sons, the holding outfit of the $128 billion (revenue) Tata group, a sprawling conglomerate of 30 companies. Until his death, patriarch Pallonji Mistry, who had a net worth of $15 billion, held an 18.4% stake in the sprawling conglomerate, and Cyrus and his older brother Shapoor are the likely inheritors of that prized holding.
Cyrus Mistry was appointed chairman of Tata Sons in 2012 but he was ousted in 2016 after reported differences with patriarch and business legend Ratan Tata. The younger Mistry spent many years embroiled in a legal battle with the Tatas challenging the ouster. But in March 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the dismissal was fair and set aside a National Company Law Appellate Tribunal order of 2019 to reinstate Cyrus Mistry as executive chairman.
During his Tata stint, Cyrus Mistry’s brother Shapoor ran the 157-year-old Shapoorji Pallonji group as chairman. With interests that included construction, real estate and renewable energy, the group had in recent years been weighed down by debt forcing the family to sell assets such as consumer durables outfit Eureka Forbes.
Apart from his brother, Mistry is survived by his wife Rohiqa and their two sons; his mother Patsy, and his two sisters Laila and Aloo.