Tata Sons director Ishaat Hussain, who relinquished his position as Tisco's finance director with effect from Monday, confirmed that the Tatas have used the entire limit under Sebi's creeping-acquisition guidelines.

Hussain told The Financial Express: "The group has heavily bought Tata Steel shares during the year through open-market purchases. We have used up the full limit permissible under the creeping-acquisition rules."

Tisco's share price had taken a severe beating during the last fiscal due to industry-wide recession, which saw steel prices dip to unprecedented low levels.

The stock price had even dipped below Rs 100 a share for a major portion of the year and touched a two-year low of Rs 68 a share in October last. The Tatasare believed to have made significant market purchases during the period.

Tata Steel has decided to elevate RC Nandrajog as the company's new vice-president (finance) following Hussain's move to Tata Sons.

Nandrajog, till now Hussain's deputy, was the general manager (finance & accounts) and has put in 32 years in the company. However, unlike Hussain, the new finance chief will not get a berth on the board of the Rs 6,274-crore company.

The number of wholetime directors on the Tata Steel board, as a result, will be reduced to just one in managing director Jamshyd J Irani. All the other 12 members of the 13-member board are non-executive directors.

The operations of the company will be managed by a eight-member executive management committee of which Nandrajog will be the newest member. The other members of the committee are Irani, vice-president (operations) T Mukherjee, VP (engineering & raw materials) NP Sinha, VP (project Gopalpur and CRM) B Muthuraman, VP marketing & sales FA Vandrewala. Also onthe team are vice-presidents AN Singh and S Pandey, the HR chief.

Financial institutions, which hold around 48 per cent stake, has two representatives in SK Chakrabarti of IDBI and PK Kaul.

Hussain had been nominated as a director of Tata Sons last year, but his move to the group holding company was delayed as the company was unsure who to appoint in Hussain's place.

Tata Steel had cast a wide net for Hussain's replacement, and several outsiders are believed to have been interviewed for the position.

The Financial Express had reported on June 15 of Hussain's joining the Tata Sons board as a wholetime director from July 1. He is expected to take over from the present director-finance of Tata Sons, NA Soonawala, who retires next year.