Mumbai/Bengaluru, Aug. 20 -- The Aditya Birla Group spent over six years chasing a crucial central bank registration that Tata Sons is trying hard to shed, a Mint review of official filings showed. While Birla was keen on a core investment company (CIC) registration without which it would have had to repay public debt, Tata Sons has been trying to surrender its own registration to avoid a public listing.

Birla Group Holdings Pvt. Ltd (BGHPL), a promoter entity that owns stakes in 11 listed Aditya Birla group companies, first applied for CIC registration with the Reserve Bank of India in September 2019, regulatory filings showed. The central bank defines CIC as a non-banking finance company (NBFC) with at least 90% of its assets in equity...