Mumbai, Aug 17: Two directors on the board of Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company and think-tank of the Tata group, have expressed a desire to step down. The two are Darbari Seth, chairman emeritus of Tata Chemicals, and SA Sabavala.

Sources in Bombay House, the Tata group headquarters, said the two directors handed in their resignations to Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata at the company's recent annual general meeting.

An upset Tata declined to accept the resignations and managed to successfully persuade the two to defer the move till the time the planned Tata Sons board restructuring is finalised.The two directors are believed to have reasoned that they could make the same contribution to Tata Sons as advisors without being a part of the board. The move was also in line with the Tata group retirement policy which puts the retirement age for managing directors and executive directors at 65 and for chairmen at 75.The Tata Sons board has 19 directors, including the recently inducted Tisco managing director JJ Irani. Sources say the board will be restructured by replacing some senior directors with line managers of new activities of the group. The board restructuring will accompany the restructuring of the group as a whole after Mckinsey finalises its report.TheTata Sons AGM also outlined the modified `brand-strengthening fee' scheme. Under the scheme, which will be voluntary, collections from companies will be retained in a separate trust and will be spent exclusively on promoting the `Tata' brand name. The collections are expected to be much lower than the Rs 40 crore envisaged originally, it is learnt.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.