Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry (1 June 1929 – 28 June 2022) was an Indian-born Irish billionaire construction tycoon. He was chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and a major shareholder of India's largest private conglomerate,

Tata Group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...

. He was one of the world's wealthiest people.

Early life

Pallonji Mistry was born to Shapoorji Mistry in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 1 June 1929. He was a member of

Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...

community in Bombay. The Mistrys own a substantial construction company, Shapoorji Pallonji. Shapoorji, the group patriarch and Pallonji's father, built some of Mumbai's landmarks around the Fort area – the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, the

Grindlays Bank The historic overseas bank was established in London in 1828 as Leslie & Grindlay, agents and bankers to the British army and business community in India. Banking operations expanded to include the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and elemen ...

, the Standard Chartered Bank, the State Bank of India and the

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible f ...

buildings.

Career

His father first bought shares in

Tata Sons Tata Sons Private Limited is the parent company of the Tata Group and holds the bulk of shareholding in the Tata group of companies including their land holdings across India, tea estates and steel plants. It is a privately owned conglomerate of ...

in the 1930s, a stake that as of 2011 stood at 18.4%, making Mistry the largest individual shareholder in Tata Sons, which is primarily controlled by the Tata philanthropic Allied Trusts, and the largest individual shareholder in India's largest private conglomerate,

, the primary shareholder being the charitable Tata Trusts. Pallonji Mistry was the chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, through which he owned Shapoorji Pallonji Construction Limited, Forbes Textiles and Eureka Forbes Limited. He was the former chairman of Associated Cement Companies. His son,

Cyrus Cyrus ( Persian: کوروش) is a male given name. It is the given name of a number of Persian kings. Most notably it refers to Cyrus the Great ( BC). Cyrus is also the name of Cyrus I of Anshan ( BC), King of Persia and the grandfather of Cyrus ...

, was chairman of Tata Sons from November 2011 to October 2016. Within the Tata Group, he is known as the ''Phantom of Bombay House'' for the quiet but assured way he commanded power around the Mumbai headquarters of the Tata empire. According to ''

Bloomberg Billionaires Index The ''Bloomberg Billionaires Index'', launched in March 2012, is a daily ranking of the world's 500 richest people based on their net worth. It draws information from "action in the stock market, economic indicators and news reports", features a p ...

'', Pallonji Mistry's wealth was estimated to be about US$30 Billion in mid-2021. and US$29 billion at the time of his death. He was the richest Irish billionaire at the time of his death, and the world's 143 richest person.

Personal life and death

In 2003, Pallonji gave up his Indian citizenship to become an

Irish citizen Irish nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of the Republic of Ireland. The primary law governing these regulations is the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, which came into force on 17 July 1956. Re ...

"on the basis of his marriage to an Irish-born national", Pat "Patsy" Perin Dubash, who was born in September 1939 at Hatch Street Nursing House in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. He remained in residence in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. The family's interest in Ireland is ascribed, in part, to their love of horses; Mistry owned a stud farm and a home in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, India. Mistry has two sons and two daughters. His elder son, Shapoor Mistry (b. 1964), runs the Shapoorji Pallonji group, while his younger son, the late

Cyrus Mistry Cyrus Pallonji Mistry (4 July 1968 – 4 September 2022) was an Indian businessman. He was the chairman of the Tata Group, an Indian business conglomerate, from 2012 to 2016. He was the sixth chairman of the group, and only the second (af ...

(1968—2022), served for some years as chairman of the

Tata group The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest conglomerate, with products and services in over 150 countries, and operations in 100 countries across six continents ...

. Mistry's elder daughter is Laila and his younger daughter, Aloo, is married to

Noel Tata Noel Naval Tata (born 1957) is an Indian businessman with Irish citizenship, who is the chairman of Trent and Tata Investment Corporation, the managing director of Tata International, and the vice chairman of Titan Company and Tata Steel. Ear ...

, half-brother of

Ratan Tata Ratan Naval Tata, GBE (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian industrialist and former chairman of Tata Sons. He was also the chairman of the Tata Group from 1990 to 2012, serving also as interim chairman from October 2016 through February 2017 ...

. He was awarded the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

in January 2016 by the Government of India for his contributions in the field of trade and industry. A short biography of Mistry was written in a 2008 book by Manoj Namburu titled ''The Moguls of Real Estate''. Mistry died in Mumbai on 28 June 2022 at the age of 93.

Early life

Career

Personal life and death

References

Further reading