The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said it has included Tata Sons in its list of upper-layer non-banking financial companies, a category that faces stricter regulatory requirements, keeping pressure on one of the country's biggest holding firms towards going public unless it secures an exemption.
The RBI said the classification would not affect Tata Sons' pending application to give up its NBFC registration.
India's Tata Sons, the umbrella organisation for 31 companies including TCS (TCS.NS), Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles (TAMO.NS) and Tata Steel (TISC.NS), is facing pressure to go public, even as the charitable trust's controlling two-thirds of the conglomerate grapple with internal differences.
Upper-layer NBFCs are the RBI’s designation for large and systemically important non-bank lenders, which face stricter regulatory scrutiny.
Until now, Tata Sons has remained unlisted. But pressure to list is mounting from internal stakeholders, including its second-largest shareholder, the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group.
While under RBI's rules, an entity classified as an upper-layer NBFC is required to list, the RBI did not say explicitly say whether Tata Sons will need to comply only after its application for deregistration is decided.
