In this article titled “Pallonji Mistry 101: Who is the Famous Billionaire and Construction Baron?” by Zatrun.com, we will delve into everything you need to know in detail about the famous billionaire and construction baron Pallonji Mistry that our readers are curious about.
Who is Pallonji Mistry?
Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry (June 1, 1929 – June 28, 2022) was an Indian-born Irish billionaire construction baron. He was the chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and a significant shareholder of Tata Group, India’s largest private conglomerate. He was one of the richest people in the world.
Pallonji Mistry was born on June 1, 1929, to Shapoorji Mistry in Bombay (now known as Mumbai). He was a member of the Parsi community in Bombay. The Mistry family owns the significant construction company, Shapoorji Pallonji Group. The group’s patriarch, Shapoorji, and Pallonji’s father built some iconic structures in Mumbai’s Fort area – buildings such as the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, Grindlays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India, and Reserve Bank of India.
Career Life:
Pallonji Mistry’s father first purchased shares in Tata Sons in the 1930s, and as of 2011, this stake remained at 18.4%. This made Mistry the largest individual shareholder of Tata Sons. Tata Sons is primarily controlled by the Tata philanthropic Alliance Foundation and is the largest individual shareholder of Tata Group, India’s largest private conglomerate.
Pallonji Mistry was the chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which owned Shapoorji Pallonji Construction Limited, Forbes Textiles, and Eureka Forbes Limited. He was also a former chairman of Associated Cement Companies. His son Cyrus was the chairman of Tata Sons from November 2011 to October 2016. Within the Tata Group, he was known as the “Ghost of Bombay House” because he was a powerful but silent figure around Bombay House, the Mumbai headquarters of the Tata empire.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Pallonji Mistry’s wealth was estimated to be around $30 billion in mid-2021 and was $29 billion at the time of his death. At the time of his death, he was the richest Irish billionaire and the 143rd richest person in the world.
Personal Life and Death:
Pallonji became an Irish citizen in 2003 based on his marriage to an Irish-born citizen, renouncing his Indian citizenship. His wife, Pat “Patsy” Perin Dubash, was born in 1939 at the Hatch Street Nursing House in Dublin. However, Pallonji continued to reside in Mumbai. The family’s interest in Ireland is attributed to their love of horses; Mistry owned a 200-acre horse farm and a 930 square meter house in Pune.
Mistry had two sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Shapoor Mistry (b. 1964), runs the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, while his younger son, Cyrus Mistry (1968-2022), served as the chairman of the Tata Group for a period of time. Mistry’s elder daughter, Laila, and younger daughter, Aloo, are both married to Noel Tata, the stepbrother of Ratan Tata. In January 2016, the government awarded Mistry the Padma Bhushan for his contributions to trade and industry. Mistry’s brief biography appears in the 2008 book, The Moguls of Real Estate, written by Manoj Namburu. Mistry passed away on June 28, 2022, at the age of 93, in Mumbai.
