Ratan Tata to dwell on Nano, marital status in memoirs

Ratan Tata, who steered the country's biggest industrial group for two decades, said he would discuss everything, from mergers to his private life, in memoirs to be published in a Japanese newspaper.

The 76-year-old industrialist, in comments carried on Tuesday in Japanese in the Nikkei newspaper, said stepping down in December 2012 as chairman of the Tata Group, had given him a chance to reflect.

"It will be the first time for me to recount the joys and sadness that I experienced behind the scenes" at the helm of the salt-to-software group, he said. Coming segments over the next month would reveal details about "mergers and acquisitions, new vehicle developments, labour disputes, assassination, terrorism, organisational reforms, power politics, fraud and selection of a successor," he said.

Buying out companies and starting new businesses helped boost revenue 17-fold during his tenure, he said. Tata Motors (TTMT) purchased Jaguar Land Rover for $2.3 billion in 2008, and a year later, introduced the Nano, the world's cheapest car.

Those decisions were part of an effort to globalise and "think big," he said. "I also plan to confess to everything about my private life, including why I joined the Tata Group even though I wasn't interested in managing businesses and why I've remained single," Tata said.

Tata said he decided to recount his life after regretting a veil of mystery that he'd created with his aversion to interviews and public speaking. He succeeded his uncle in 1991, as the country's economy was opening up.

Cyrus Mistry took over as chairman of Tata Sons, the group's holding company, in December 2012.

Debashis Ray, a Mumbai-based spokesman for the Tata Group, said he couldn't immediately comment on the Nikkei article.

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