Tatas may consolidate electronics business

The Tata group is planning to consolidate its strategic electronics and SCADA (supervisory and data acquisition system) businesses, spread out over four group companies.

The group is yet to finalise the format of the consolidation. But it has set up an internal committee to work it out.

The committee comprises F A Vandrevala, managing director of Tata Power, Nelco Chairman Madhu Bhagwat, Tata Honeywell Managing Director Vinayak Deshpande, among others.

The SCADA business is spread over Nelco, the newly acquired CMC and Tata Honeywell, while the electronics business is with Tata Power, Nelco and Tata Honeywell.

When contacted, a Tata group spokesperson said, "We are aware the electronics business overlaps in some group companies. We are exploring certain possibilities, but it is too early to comment in which direction the exercise is headed."

Tata group sources said they were looking at various options, including spinning off divisions from one group company into another.

Earlier, the group was looking at transferring Nelco's SCADA business to Tata Honeywell, but this was eventually dropped.

The situation, senior Tata sources said, was similar to the group's infotech interests. In infotech, the Tata group is likely to merge  Tata Infotech, Tata Elxsi, CMC and Tata Technologies into Tata Consultancy Services after it goes public.