MUMBAI
\nCyrus Mistry, the 54-year-old former chairman of Indian conglomerate Tata Sons, died in a road accident near financial capital Mumbai on Sunday, Indian police said.
\nMistry was ousted as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the $300-billion salt-to-software Tata conglomerate, in a boardroom coup in 2016, sparking a long-drawn-out legal tussle on which India\u2019s top court eventually ruled in Tata Group\u2019s favour.
\nThe accident took place in Palghar, located about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Mumbai, on Sunday afternoon. Mistry was travelling to Mumbai from Gujarat with three others, B Patil, the top police official in Palghar district, said.
\nA senior Mumbai police official said the car in which Mistry was travelling had rammed into a divider, and that he had died at the accident site.
\nSeveral prominent politicians and industrialists tweeted their condolences after news of Mistry\u2019s passing was reported. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Mistry\u2019s demise untimely and shocking.
\n\u201cHe was a promising business leader who believed in India\u2019s economic prowess. His passing away is a big loss to the world of commerce and industry,\u201d Modi tweeted.
\nMistry\u2019s family and Tata Sons did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
\nMistry was the sixth chairman of the Tata group, a conglomerate started over 150 years ago, and the second not named Tata. He was the brother-in-law of Noel Tata, half-brother of Mistry\u2019s predecessor as chair Ratan Tata.
\nMistry\u2019s grandfather first bought shares in Tata Sons in the 1930s. The Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group, founded by Mistry\u2019s father, currently holds a near 18% stake, making it the largest single shareholder in a firm mostly controlled by trusts.
\nThe decades-long relationship between SP Group, one of the country\u2019s largest construction firms, and Tata Group was strained following his sacking, and SP Group has since been looking to \u201cseparate its interests\u201d from Tata Sons.
\nFund managers Reuters spoke to at the time of Mistry\u2019s appointment described him as little-known in business circles.
\nA graduate in civil engineering from London\u2019s Imperial College and in management from the London Business School, Mistry described himself as a voracious reader of business books and golfer, and shared his family\u2019s love of horses.
\nSP Group did not immediately respond to Reuters requests seeking comment on Mistry\u2019s death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MUMBAI Cyrus Mistry, the 54-year-old former chairman of Indian conglomerate Tata Sons, died in a road accident near financial capital Mumbai on Sunday, Indian police said. Mistry was ousted as chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the $300-billion salt-to-software Tata conglomerate, in a boardroom coup in 2016, sparking a long-drawn-out legal tussle on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-281515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n