My friend who is in stocks says this , that most of Tata entities are over valued and not good for investment.
But for now , if these sales mean that GoI can reduce their fiscal defecit, it would be a good news in interim
Bharat Petroleum and Pawan Hans are also in advanced stages
You can safely blame Ratan Tata & his ego for it . They over bid for Corus , then stuck around with Land Rover & Jaguar more than was necessary . Ditto for Nano which was a huge tragedy for it was definitely a car with a future in a market like India . These were the reasons why Cyrus Mistry was unceremoniously ousted when he tried to exit these ventures .
Now in an another vain move he's persuaded the Tata Group Management to acquire Air India that too at a time like this.
From the GoI's perspective it's good . They've rid themselves of an unprofitable venture which was also a huge cash guzzler. From the Tata Group's PoV it's a disaster in the making as they lack the nimble culture the management that such a dynamic industry needs .
Historically too , in the B2C segment which calls for extensive customer interface the Tata Group has been found wanting . There are very few success stories in their group portfolio of such examples & OTOH , plenty of failures.