The-Last-Rajah-Ratan-Tata

Modesty The chairman ot theTata Group Indias biggest conglomerate, with businesses ranging from software, cars, and brand to phone service, tea bags, and wristwatches usually drives himself to the office in his$12,500 Tata Indigo Marina wagon. He prefers to spend weekends in solitude with his two dogsat a beachfront home he designed himself. And disdainful of pretense, he travels alone even onlong business trips, eschewing the retinues of oldes who typically blow corporate chieftdlns.But the 69-year-old Tata also has a daredevil streak, An avid aviator, he often flies a orporateFalcon 2000 jet around Indla_ And In February he caused a whiz at the Aero India 2007 airshow by co-piloting Lockheed (LMT) F-16 and Boeing (BA) F-18 fighter jets. Tatas business dealings reflect the bolder side of his personality. In the past four years he hasembarked on an investment debauchery that is building his group from a once-stodgy regional playerinto a global heavy-vveight.Since 2003, Tata has bought the truck unit of South Koreas DaewooMotors, a stake in one of Indonesias biggest coal mines, and steel mills In Singapore, Thailand,and Vietnam. It has taken ver d slew of tony hotels Including New Yorks Pierre, the Ritz-Carlton In Boston, and San Franciscos Camden Place, The 2004 purchase of Tyco Internationals(TYC) undersea telecom cables for $130 million, a price that In hindsight looks Ilke a steal,turned Tata into the worlds biggest carrier ot international phone calls.With its $91 millionbuyoutof British engineering firm Incat International, Tata Technologies now is a major supplierof outsourced industrial design for American auto and aerospace companies, with 3,300engineers in India, the U. S. , and Europe. The rowning deal to date has been Tata Steels $13 billion takeover in April of Dutch Britishsteel giant Corus Group, a target that would have been unthinkable Just d few years ago. In oneswoop, the move greatly expends Teta Steels range of finished products, secure s access toautomakers across the u. , and Europe, and boosts Its capacity fivefold, with mills added Inpennsylvanla and OhloNow, a new gambit may slingback Tata into the big leagues ot global auto manufacturing Thecompany is said to be weighing a bid for Jaguar Cars and Land Rover, which Ford Motor Co. (F)wants to el