The company gets 100%shareholding in historic airline
Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata tweeted, “Welcome back, Air India”, after Tata Sons won the bid for the airline and regained its control 68 years after its nationalisation IN 1953.
“Tatas will have the opportunity of regaining the image and reputation it enjoyed in earlier years. Mr. JRD Tata would’ve been overjoyed if he was in our midst today,” he wrote.
The Tata Group had submitted their final bidding for the airline on 15th September and today they emerged as the highest bidders for the acquisition. The company offered a massive Rs 18000 crore for attaining a 100% stake in the airline.
Tatas need to pay Rs 2,700 crore in cash as part of the deal and reserve price for Air India has been fixed at Rs 12,906 crore by the Government of India.However, the deal has come with some more conditions as the government has said that -the company cannot fire any airline employee for one year.
It can offer only a voluntary retirement to the employees from the second yearTatas cannot transfer the Air India brand and logo for five years SpiceJet was also in the running for acquisition, however they made a bid of ₹15,100 crore which is 2900 crore less than the Tata Group. Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet, said: “I would like to congratulate the Government on the successful disinvestment of Air India.
They ran a transparent and flexible process and gave new impetus to India’s disinvestment program. I have been an Air India fan all my life and it’s time for the Maharaja to reclaim its position as a leading airline of the world.
”A brief history of the company The company was formed by JRD Tata in 1932 with the name ‘TATA AVIATION SERVICE’, which later came to be known as Tata Airlines and Air India. Tata airlines went public in 1946 as a ‘joint stock company’ named Air India and on 8th June 1948 became independent India’s first public-private enterprise to fly to Europe, marking a historic day in aviation history of India.
However, the company was nationalised in the year 1953 but JRD continued to be its chairman till 1977. Air India became the first Asian airline to induct jet aircraft and started flying to New York in 1960. Today, 8th October marks another historic day in the history of the airlines as the government announced that it is going back to the Tata’s as they outbid a consortium led by SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh.
