Tragedy-Hit Mistrys Have $29 Billion Locked in Bitter Feud With Tatas

Through five generations and 157 years, the Mistrys have grown an empire responsible for building palaces, factories and stadiums across Asia.

It's been a harrowing year for Shapoor Mistry. After losing his father and younger brother in the span of three months, the scion of one of the world's richest clans now faces a major business challenge.

Through five generations and 157 years, the Mistrys have grown an empire responsible for building palaces, factories and stadiums across Asia. But the family fortune, estimated at $29 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is about 90% locked up in a festering feud with India's biggest conglomerate, Tata Group.

Now Mr Mistry, 57, will have to figure out how to resolve that dispute and free up cash as a weakening economy and rising interest rates rattle his Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which just emerged from years of financial stress during the pandemic. He has met with lawyers and consultants, people familiar with the discussions said. Those, along with family friends, have offered to mediate when the time is right, they added, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.

The Mistrys and Tatas - who both belong to the Parsi Zoroastrian community - had been close for almost a century before they fell out.