Mumbai, Sep 12 (PTI) The Reserve Bank has rejected Tata Sons' application to surrender its non-banking finance company (NBFC) licence, which will force a public listing of the holding company of the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, sources said on Saturday.

In a letter received by the Company Secretary and Chief Financial Officer on Saturday, the RBI specified that the group does not meet the necessary criteria, leading it to reject the March 2024 application for deregistration.

This makes a public listing of Tata Sons imminent as it qualifies as an upper layer NBFC, which must mandatorily list on the stock exchanges.

A response was awaited from the Reserve Bank when reached out for comment. Tata Sons also did not respond immediately to this development.

The development comes as the USD 170 billion Tata Sons is still facing leadership challenges and a divided board, which led Chairman N Chandrasekaran to opt out of reappointment when his term ends in February next year.

It is a divided house even among the shareholders, with the Noel Tata-led Tata Trusts, a string of non-profits holding over 65 per cent of Tata Sons, being reluctant to list, while Shapoorji Pallonji Group, its largest private shareholder with around 18 per cent holding, is publicly pushing for the group to list.

According to experts, a listing will compel the group to be more transparent about all its affairs, including capital allocation, and investor pressure will lead to demands for financial returns, making long-term bets difficult.

As per news reports, the issue of listing the business was also among the reasons which led Noel Tata to vote against the reappointment of Chandrasekaran. The half-brother of Ratan Tata, who chairs Tata Trusts and is a member of the Tata Sons board, wanted a commitment from Chandrasekaran to ensure that Tata Sons is not forced to list, while the latter is learnt to have opined that the outcome of a regulatory or legal matter cannot be ascertained.

Other issues flagged by Noel Tata included the losses being incurred by group's other businesses including the Tata Digital and Air India, which were either launched or acquired during Chandrasekaran's nearly decade-long stint at the helm.

The RBI had come out with a list of 15 entities, classifying them as Upper Layer NBFCs and mandating them to list by October 2025. Earlier this year, it had expanded the list to include government-run NBFCs as well and also announced that any NBFC with over Rs 1 lakh crore of assets will automatically qualify as an upper-layer NBFC.

However, a decision on Tata Sons' plea to surrender its core investment company NBFC license was kept pending, and the RBI brass repeatedly parried a clear answer regarding the holding company's listing.

Tata Sons, which has assets of over Rs 1.75 lakh crore, reportedly underwent major changes to prevent listing, including a deleveraging exercise. PTI AA MR