Will Tata Sons Have To Go Public? RBI Rejects Bid To Surrender NBFC Licence
The RBI has rejected Tata Sons' bid to surrender its Core Investment Company registration, sources said. This forces the holding company to list its shares as an upper layer NBFC, a status it has held since 2022, after its assets of INR 2.01 lakh crore crossed the regulator's INR 1 lakh crore threshold.
The Reserve Bank of India has turned down Tata Sons' application to give up its Certificate of Registration as a Core Investment Company, according to sources cited by CNBC TV18. The central bank conveyed the rejection through a formal letter to the holding company. Tata Sons had moved the RBI in 2024 to deregister as a CIC, a step that would have freed it from the obligation to list its shares publicly. With the regulator now declining that request, Tata Sons will have to fall in line with the rules that govern upper layer NBFCs, chief among them the requirement to go public.
Why The Rejection Matters
The RBI's move shuts the door on a path Tata Sons had been pursuing since 2024 to stay outside the mandatory listing net. The holding company has figured among the entities flagged by the central bank as an upper layer NBFC, a category that comes with tighter compliance norms under the regulator's revised scale based framework. RBI Rejects Tata Sons’ NBFC Licence Surrender, Clearing Path for Tata Group Holding Company’s Listing.
That framework, updated in June 2026, fixed an asset threshold of INR 1 lakh crore for upper layer classification. Tata Sons reported total assets of INR 2.01 lakh crore as of March 31, 2026, comfortably crossing that mark. The company has held its place among upper layer NBFCs since 2022 and had even cleared its outstanding debt in a bid to meet the criteria for deregistration.
Deregistration Rules Prove A Stumbling Block
RBI norms lay down strict conditions for any NBFC seeking to exit its registration. An entity must not hold public funds, must have no customer interface, and must keep assets below INR 1,000 crore to qualify for deregistration within the set deadline. Given Tata Sons' scale, meeting those conditions was always going to be an uphill task. Tata Sons Succession: Who Are the 3 Names in Race To Replace N Chandrasekaran?
The RBI has also made clear that once an NBFC is placed in the upper layer, it stays bound by the stricter framework for at least five years, even if it later drops below the qualifying criteria.
RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra had earlier weighed in on the matter when asked whether Tata Sons would continue in the upper layer. He said, 'So, as per those principles, everyone knows what the list is. And so that is where the matter stands.'
Tata Trusts And SP Group Split Over Listing Question
The listing requirement has stirred a divide among Tata Sons' shareholders. Tata Trusts, which holds a 66 per cent stake through the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, had passed a resolution in July 2025 pushing to keep the holding company privately owned.
The Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which owns an 18.37 per cent stake, has taken the opposite view, seeing a public listing as the clearest way to unlock the value of its holding. The group is looking to monetise part of its stake to pay down a portion of its roughly INR 60,000 crore debt, with some of its Tata Sons shares already pledged to raise funds.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2026 07:41 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
