mumbai, Aug. 13 -- Natarajan Chandrasekaran's term as chair of Tata Sons has been a tale of two halves, with the Tata Group delivering a robust performance during his first term, and external challenges and the underperformance of private businesses catching up with India's largest conglomerate in the second. During his first five-year term ended February 2022, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tata Steel delivered strong financial returns even during the pandemic. TCS continued to deliver record profits each year, maintaining its pole position in India's IT sector. Tata Steel delivered its highest-ever profit in FY22, overtaking even TCS. Tata Motors scripted a historic turnaround, rising from being a fringe player to finding a podium place on India's car sales. Even within private businesses, Tata made early inroads into e-commerce, with Tata Digital launching its ambitious super-app Tata Neu towards the end of Chandra's first term. However, a string of challenges followed during his second term. TCS reported its first-ever revenue decline since listing in 2004 and was forced to let go of over 12,000 employees. Tata Motors successfully split its business into passenger and commercial vehicle units, but subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover faced setbacks, including a crippling cyberattack, a botched relaunch of the Jaguar brand, and declining sales in key markets. Tata Steel, too, faced persistent losses in Europe, offsetting its performance in India. "Chandra has done well as the chairman, giving balanced performance across the group and its constituencies. This is especially so in the first term," said Kavil Ramachandran, professor of entrepreneurship (practice) at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. His second term was, however, mixed with external geopolitical and technological challenges, adding to his woes on the business front, he said. "In short, I would rate him as a very successful leader, who could perhaps have handled some situations better. Some of the internal management challenges in group companies such as Air India could have been handled better," he said. Between March 2017 and March 2022, the valuation of listed Tata companies surged three-fold to Rs.23.2 lakh crore, growing at twice the pace of benchmark Sensex. But in the subsequent four years, it moved barely 4% to Rs.24 lakh crore, far slower than the 23% growth in Sensex.On the private side of the business, losses mounted, nearly doubling year-on-year to Rs.27,854 crore during the year ended 31 March 2026. The four new businesses that Tata Sons entered into under Chandrasekaran-Air India, Tata Digital, Tata Electronics, and Agratas-accounted for the lion's share of the losses. Air India's losses more than doubled to Rs.22,238 crore as the carrier had one of its worst-ever years, with a deadly air crash and a surge in fuel costs. Tata Digital was the next big loss accumulator, as neither its super-app nor its e-commerce bets, such as BigBasket and 1mg, saw significant consumer traction.A key milestone under Chandrasekaran's watch was the group going debt-free: from the Rs.20,839 crore in bank borrowings at the end of March 2017, it now has zero borrowings....