New CEO shakes up Vodafone

Vodafone's chief executive Vittorio Colao is making his mark on the mobile operator, launching a major reorganisation of top management after just two months at the helm.

The world's No.1 mobile phone company by revenue appointed a new boss for Europe, announced the departure of another top regional manager and split its emerging-markets division in two.

Vodafone appointed former France Telecom finance director Michel Combes as the new chief executive for Europe and said Paul Donovan, chief executive of the existing emerging-markets group, would leave.

The company also announced that its investment in the US firm Verizon Wireless would not be part of any region and would instead be managed at a senior level by a team including Colao.

The announcement comes after Vodafone cut its revenue outlook in July and warned that some customers were holding back from buying and using new handsets, knocking its shares and the wider sector.

Analysts welcomed the moves, saying Combes would bring an emphasis on taking further costs out of the mature European businesses, and said the time was right to divide the emerging group as it was becoming too large.

Combes, previously chairman and chief executive of private equity-backed TV and mobile transmission operator TDF Group, replaces Colao who became Vodafone group chief exec at the end of July.

While Combes was at TDF, the group diversified both operationally and geographically, snapping up businesses in Germany, Finland, Hungary and the Netherlands and eyeing new services such as Wimax and digital radio.

"Michel Combes has a decent reputation and he's also the sort of profile of person that Vodafone needed to bring in," Dresdner analyst John Davies told Reuters. "They had Colao doing that job so there was a gap to fill."

Combes will now be in charge for all markets in Europe, with a remit to cover marketing, technology and business services.

Vodafone also reorganised its emerging businesses known as EMAPA, in eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Affiliates into two new units and said Donovan, the current chief executive, would leave at the end of the year.

Donovan had been seen as a contender for the group chief executive role taken by Colao.

The emerging markets group will now be split into two entities of central Europe and Africa, and Asia Pacific, with two regional chief executives to be appointed in due course.

The Verizon Wireless stake will also be under new control. Vodafone owns 45 percent of Verizon Wireless, the second-largest US mobile service provider, with Verizon Communications owning the rest.

A small group of investors had previously called on Vodafone to sell or spin off the stake as they were frustrated that the value was not reflected in the mobile group's share price.

Some analysts said the move to put the stake under different control could reignite that talk, but most said the change merely reflected the fact it was an important investment which no longer fitted within EMAPA.

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