Tata Steel Europe earning negative returns; poses risk to overall group: Cyrus Mistry

Cyrus Mistry has made a representation to the Board of Directors of Tata Steel defending his leadership ahead of the December 21 EGM which would consider his as director of Tata Steel.

Mumbai: Cyrus Mistry has made a representation to the Board of Directors of Tata Steel calling his ouster "illegal" and defended his decision of divesting in Tata Steels Europe's business.

Defended his handling of European operations, Cyrus Mistry said that the huge capital employed in it was earning negative returns and posed a risk to the entire group.

"While pursuing a long term solution to the current issue, it is important to balance the needs of nearly one million shareholders of the company, who have supported the company for decades and many of whom rely on Tata Steel to supplement their income.", added Mistry.

He added: "Our aim has always been to have a robust and resilient global operations. To ensure this outcome, we believe it is important to tackle some of the structural challenges with the UK assets, namely the potential high pension deficits, high energy costs and high taxes."

He also lashed out at "insinuations that Tata Steel board only looked at UK investments through a short term financial lens" saying it was "furthest from the truth".

The Board of Directors of Tata Steel is going to meet on December 21 to  consider a special resolution moved by Tata Sons to remove Cyrus Mistry as director. Mistry made a representation to the Board defending his leadership as director of Tata Steel in which he said that his removal from the Chairmanship of Tata Sons, "was illegal to begin with".

Mistry cited "continued investments in these assets, as well as the significant amount of management bandwidth devoted to optimise operations" in order to refute the allegations.

He asked the board to circulate his representation to its shareholders so that they can take "an informed decision".

With PTI inputs