Noel Tata May Take Charge Of RBI Talks On Tata Sons Listing Status

Noel Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, is set to meet Reserve Bank of India officials before the end of this month to discuss retaining Tata Sons as an unlisted company, according to a Moneycontrol report.

This will be the first such meeting since Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran announced on August 12 that he would step down from his role in February next year.

Until now, Tata Sons officials, including certain board members, had been engaging with the RBI on the listing matter, while Noel Tata remained largely outside these discussions. This is set to change, with Tata now taking charge of the issue, the report said.

Noel Tata is keen to retain Tata Sons as an unlisted entity and will be the primary person representing the company in his capacity as a board member going forward, the report added. He wants the uncertainty around listing resolved soon.

In September last year, Moneycontrol had reported that the RBI may allow Tata Sons to remain unlisted, though the regulator wanted unanimous consensus within the Tata group on the matter. In May, another Moneycontrol report said Noel Tata had written to the RBI expressing his intention to keep Tata Sons unlisted.

With Chandrasekaran set to conclude his term early next year and a new leadership team likely to be appointed soon, Noel Tata wants the three-year-old issue settled at the earliest, the report said.

SP Group Exit Plan Also On Agenda

An exit plan for Shapoorji Pallonji Group's shareholding in Tata Sons is still at an early stage but may also be taken up if RBI officials raise the issue, the report said. Shapoorji Pallonji Group holds about 18% stake in Tata Sons and has been seeking liquidity, either through an IPO or a buy-back, to address the firm's debt, pegged at ₹60,000 crore as of March 31, 2026.

Tata Sons was classified as an upper layer non-banking financial company (NBFC) by the RBI in 2022, with a mandate to list within three years. That deadline lapsed in September last year.

Notably, Tata Sons has retired all its external debt, mainly loans from the banking sector, and has given an undertaking to the RBI that it will not take on fresh debt to on-lend to group companies. The holding company, which spans businesses from automobiles to technology, has also assured the regulator that it will not provide guarantees for group company borrowings in exchange for a fee.

In December 2024, Tata Sons gave a written commitment to the RBI, along with a request to be de-recognised as an NBFC-Core Investment Company (NBFC-CIC), stating it would not engage in any activity classified as providing financial services. The application to de-register Tata Sons under the CIC classification remains pending with the RBI.

If the regulator approves the request to deregister Tata Sons as an NBFC, it would also remove the requirement for the company to list.