Tata Sons nominates Ishaat Hussain as interim TCS chairman to replace Cyrus Mistry

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in a regulatory filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday said it had received a notice from Tata Sons (its parent firm) nominating Ishaat Hussain as the interim chairman of the company. Hussain would replace Cyrus Mistry with immediate effect. 

"The Company has received a letter dated November 09, 2016 from Tata Sons Limited nominating Mr Ishaat Hussain as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company in place of Mr Cyrus P. Mistry with immediate effect. In view of this, Mr Mistry has ceased to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company and Mr. Hussain is the new Chairman of the Company. The Company has been further informed that Mr Hussain shall hold office as Chairman of the Company until a new Chairman is appointed in his place," TCS said in its regulatory filing. 

Additionally, Tata Sons also issued a separate notice saying it would hold a special general body meeting to remove Mistry as the director of the company. The meeting will have to held in 45 days.

The latest move by the parent company is going to further escalate the Ratan Tata-Cyrus Mistry row. Last week, the independent directors of the Tata-company held Indian Hotels company backed Mistry and said they supported him as their chairman further complicating the task of him being replaced as chairman from several company boards. 

"Taking into account board assessments and performance evaluations carried out over the years, the independent directors unanimously expressed their full confidence in the chairman, Cyrus Mistry, and praised the steps taken by him in providing strategic direction and leadership to the company," it said.

Following the news, the TCS stock was trading at Rs 2,202 at around 10:10 am on Thursday, up 1.43 percent from its previous close on the BSE.