Tata to the rescue!

by Patrice Sarath, November 26th, 2007, 7:00 am

Movie trailer guy voiceover:
“In a business world fraught with peril, only one company can save capitalism.”

So I haven’t written about my favorite company in the whole wide world, Tata Group, in a long time. No bursting into song, no groupie-like adulation (okay, I guess there’s still a smidge of groupie-like adulation). I don’t know about you, but I’ve been suffering withdrawal. So I had to see why Tata wasn’t making news, aside from its bid for Jaguar and Rover.

Let’s see: Have they been exposed to the US subprime mortgage meltdown that shook the foundations of investment banking to its very core? Oh, yikes! They were — turns out that Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus was jeopardized by the subprime crisis, which reduced the availability of credit. Tata had to reorganize the financing as a result.

Okay, well, what about the ABN AMRO takeover? Did Tata have anything to do with that? Nope, looks like Tata had nothing to do with that story, which was the the soap opera of the summer, what with the Barclays bid, the Royal Bank of Scotland consortium counteroffer, and the Bank of America acquisition of LaSalle. Fireworks aplenty, that one, but not for Tata.

China, Inc. has been in the news lately, what with reports of recalls of unsafe toys and other products. Tata and China have a history, one that stretches back more than a hundred years to the Opium Wars. Seems that Tata might have supplied the opium the British forced on the Chinese. (Finding out that Tata was on the wrong side in this unjust war almost made me reconsider my deep and abiding love for the company. Almost.) Did Tata get burned by this news?

Nope, looks like Tata is clear. China, you can’t blame this one on Tata!

Aside from the Jaguar bid, it looks like there’s a good reason that I haven’t written about Tata lately. They have just been doing what they do best, going about their business. That doesn’t get the headlines, good or bad. I’m sure it suits Tata just fine too.

And you know what? If it’s good enough for Tata, it’s good enough for me.