After seven decades, the Tata Group bought from the government the flagship carrier its founder had launched. Will it manage to significantly turn around the airline's fortunes in 2023?
It had been a seven-decade-long wait. But, at the end of it all, the salt-to-steel conglomerate, Tata Group, finally brought Air India home in 2022. The Indian government had begun the process of selling Air India in July 2017 before it finally chose the Tata Group in October 2021 as the potential buyer. As part of its bid, the group’s wholly-owned subsidiary Talace Pvt Ltd put an enterprise value (EV) bid at ₹18,000 crore with debt to be retained at ₹15,300 crore and a cash component of ₹2,700 crore.
The airline was formally handed over to the conglomerate in January 2022, making it one of the largest airline companies in the country. “We are delighted that the disbursement is completed,” Tata Group chairman N Chandrashekaran announced after the handover. “We are happy that Air India is back with the Tata Group. We look forward to working with everyone in creating a world-class airline.”
(This story appears in the 30 December, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)