Mumbai (Agencies): Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, who is recognized for having turned the Tata Group into a world-class conglomerate, has died at age 86, the company said late Wednesday.
Under Tata, the business expanded into a vast global conglomerate with a portfolio that included sports automobiles and software.
"It is with a profound sense of loss that we bid farewell to Mr. Ratan Naval Tata, a truly uncommon leader whose immeasurable contributions have shaped not only the Tata Group, but also the very fabric of our nation," company chair Natarajan Chandrasekaran said in a statement.
Born in 1937 in Bombay, now Mumbai, Ratan Tata originally planned to be an architect and was working in the United States (US) when his grandmother — who raised him — asked him to return home and join the sprawling family business.
In 1962, when he first started working for TISCO, which is now known as Tata, he was housed in an apprentice dormitory and performed shop work close to blast furnaces.
Riding the crest of India's recent extreme free-market reforms, he inherited the family fortune in 1991.
One of Tata's initial actions was to increase control over enterprises, enforce retirement ages, elevate younger individuals to top positions, and limit the authority of some of the CEOs of the Tata Group's businesses.
He founded telecommunications firm Tata Teleservices in 1996 and took IT firm Tata Consultancy Services, the group's cash cow, public in 2004.
However, the group decided it needed to look beyond Indian shores in order to flourish properly.
During Tata's 21 years in leadership, the British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover were added to the conglomerate's global reach, which began with salt to steel.
The group also purchased British tea firm Tetley in 2000 for $432 million and Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus in 2007 for $13 billion, at the time the biggest takeover of a foreign firm by an Indian company.
Following his stepping back from the Tata Group, Ratan Tata rose to prominence as an investor in Indian startups, supporting a wide range of businesses such as the digital payments company Paytm, the ride-hailing company Ola's Ola Electric division, and the home and beauty services provider Urban Company.
Among his many awards, he received India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 for exceptional and distinguished service in trade and industry.