Tata Agratas sees Chinese partner's board nominee exit ahead of rollout
The sole representative of Agratas Energy Storage Solutions Pvt. Ltd’s Chinese-owned technology partner, AESC Apollo, has stepped down from the board of the Tata Group’s battery venture less than two years after joining it and just ahead of the firm's move towards commercialization, regulatory filings show.
The departure of Gordon Louis Chin comes amid a decline in outstanding payments for its services and equipment to AESC and Agratas building its own manufacturing capabilities. The move marks a shift in the partnership’s board-level representation just as the Tata firm prepares to scale up manufacturing in India and the UK.
According to company filings with the corporate affairs ministry, which were reviewed by Mint, the two firms had entered into an intellectual property agreement in financial year 2026 covering two types of lithium battery technologies for electric vehicles (EVs), nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) and lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) battery technologies.
Agratas looks to scale up battery manufacturing, with a 20 GWh plant in Gujarat and a 40 GWh facility in the UK, with Jaguar Land Rover lined up as its first major customer as part of a ₹5,000-crore deal between the two firms. This is a seven-year contract that starts this fiscal year.
The board member's exit is significant because AESC’s presence on the board gave the technology partner a say in Agratas’ strategy and growth plans as the company prepares to begin manufacturing and scale up operations. Mint could not independently ascertain why Chin, who serves as AESC’s general counsel, stepped down.
As per the filings, Chin joined the board in December 2024 as an additional director after AESC picked up a 12% stake in Agratas. He was later appointed a director in July 2025.
Agratas and AESC declined to comment on the issue. "AESC does not comment on the details of commercial arrangements with individual partners. Questions about Agratas’s board composition are best directed to Agratas," a spokesperson for the company told Mint.
Mint reported first in August 2025 that AESC had joined the board Agratas with a 12% stake.
In an earlier statement to Mint, AESC had said it has not invested in Agratas and that its shareholding was the result of a commercial arrangement between the two firms.
Founded in 2023, Agratas is among the Tata Group’s newest businesses set up under chairman N. Chandrasekaran, alongside Tata Digital and Tata Electronics. The venture is part of the group’s push to build domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing capabilities, joining Reliance Industries Ltd in efforts to develop a technology and supply chain long dominated by Chinese companies.
According to Agratas’ FY26 filing, the company had six directors on its board as of 31 March: chaired by Chandrasekaran, with JLR chief executive P.B. Balaji, Sucharita Choudhury (Tata Sons president of corporate affairs) and Gordon Chin serving as non-executive directors, and N.V. Sivakumar (former PWC executive) as an independent director. Thomas Flack is the managing director and CEO of the firm.
The filings show Chin had attended all the four meetings held by the Agratas board in FY26, indicating a close involvement with the firm.
Agratas said it was investing in research and development facilities and personnel to absorb the technology shared by its partner and build internal capabilities in battery manufacturing.
AESC, meanwhile, described the arrangement as a joint venture in its UK filings, saying the partnership was set up to design, develop and manufacture battery solutions.
The boardroom exit also brings the role of technolgy partnerships in Agratas' manufacturing plans into focus.
“Companies developing cells at scale could benefit from having an engineering, sourcing or supplier-development presence there, or from structured partnerships with Chinese technology and equipment companies,” said Alekhya Datta, director at electricity and renewables division at The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri). “The important point is that such a presence should have a clear technology-absorption strategy: Indian engineers learn the process, develop suppliers and bring that capability back into Indian plants.”
The financial filings of Agratas' Indian parent show the company had recognized ₹317 crore in services received from AESC Apollo in FY25, which fell to ₹186 crore in FY26. The Indian company's outstanding trade payables, the money owed, to AESC Apollo were down to ₹5 crore as of March 2026, from ₹38 crore a year earlier, the filings showed.
The other remaining payments to the technology partner are linked to capital expenditure, which declined to ₹297 crore from ₹430 crore in FY25. It includes estimated payments for milestones that had not been achieved by the end of the fiscal year.
AESC, founded in Japan in 2007 as a joint venture between Nissan Motor Co. and NEC Corp., is now owned by China's Envision Group and is headquartered in Japan. AESC Apollo Holdings, the entity that entered into the agreement with Agratas, provides technology-related services to companies in the lithium-ion battery industry.
Agratas is building a 40 GWh battery plant in Somerset, UK, and a 20 GWh facility in Sanand, Gujarat. Its research and development expenditure increased to £20.9 million in FY26 from £7.7 million in FY25 as it develops both LFP and NMC battery technologies.