Tata's takeover of Air India faces turbulence as foes lash out

Tata Sons' acquisition of troubled national carrier Air India for 180b rupees ($2.4b) last week is not only expected to face a political storm but could be a daunting task for the group, which has a checkered history in turning around companies. Sale of the airline, which lost 97b rupees in the pandemic-hit fiscal year ended March, is already taking flak from India's opposition parties. Thomas Isaac, former finance minister of the southern state of Kerala, said Narendra Modi's government sold Air India for "peanuts." Subramanian Swamy, a parliament member from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and former cabinet minister, said he would try to block the deal in court. Opponents are unhappy that cash flow-generating assets have been sold to Tata Sons while 460 billion rupees of Air India's debt will still be parked with a government-owned entity backed by real estate assets that may not cover the debt. Yet analysts are not certain Tata got the best of the deal. Since 2009, Indian taxpayers have poured 1.1t rupees into bailing out the airline, government officials said in the news conference to announce that Tata Sons subsidiary Talace Pvt won the bid for the airline. The sale plugs the financial drain for the government but shifts the burden of future investment onto Tata. Statements by Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran and group patriarch Ratan Tata were long on nostalgia and short on detail about the strategy behind the deal. Story has more.<br/>