Voda's Sarin leaves on high note

VODAFONE CHIEF Arun Sarin announced that he would be leaving yesterday [27^th May], after announcing a stellar set of financial results. The only blots on his copybook are the company's investments in Verizon Wireless and Vodacom.

Having announced revenues of £35.5 billion, Sarin quits the job with his reputation in tact. His is widely expected to be replaced by current deputy, Vittorio Colao, who was lured back to Vodafone especially for that purpose.

Besides the fact that Vodafone holds a large chunk of Verizon and is getting no dividends out of it, Colao will have to tackle the thorny issue of Vodafone's holding in South African operator, Vodacom.

With rival MTN potentially hooking up with India's Reliance Communications, the need to take full control of Vodacom gets more urgent.

The company's indecision over Verizon is more strange given that Sarin joined Vodafone as part of its US acquisition that led to the Verizon stake.

Incidentally, the INQ was amazed to learn that US banks will probably be prevented from financing the MTN/Reliance deal because MTN has operations in Iran. How bizarre is that? µ