Tata Sons exec's kin own firm once listed as group company

A Tata Group company in 2022 listed a business owned by the family members of a Tata Sons executive and run by retired group executives as a group firm, before removing the reference a year later.

- Varun Sood & Satish John

Divinion Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd was founded in 2020 by the daughter of Suprakash Mukhopadhyay, Tata Sons' group company secretary and a close aide to chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran. In 2022, Tata Pension Management Ltd listed Divinion as one of 473 "Tata Group and sponsor" companies. Tata Pension Management is backed by Tata Asset Management Ltd, where Mukhopadhyay is a director.

When contacted, Tata Pension Management said the disclosure was made by mistake.

"Divinion Advisory Services is not part of the Tata Group nor sponsored by Tata Pension Fund. Divinion Advisory Services appears under a disclosure of Tata Pension Fund, dated August 2022, which is erroneous, and we will be correcting the list at the earliest," said Kurian Jose, chief executive officer of Tata Pension Fund. Tata Pension's subsequent disclosures in 2023 and 2024 do not mention Divinion, but only name Mukhopadhyay in his role as company secretary.

A former Tata Group executive said that Mukhopadhyay, 61, had contacted him to join Divinion or make investments with it.