- Vodafone Group Plc VOD CEO Nick Read will step down at the end of 2022 after a year in which the The telecom company’s share price fell.
- Read was unable to stop the telecom giant from years of falling prices and merging with major competitors. Bloomberg reports.
- CFO Margherita Della Valle will become interim CEO in addition to her current role until a substitute.
- The company’s share price has fallen this year even after Read tried to reassure investors by selling assets and rebalancing the UK phone company’s business.
- Last month, Vodafone agreed to sell a stake in its Frankfurt-listed company Vantage Tower AG VTAGY Deal to a private equity consortium.
- Read, who has been in the post for four years and has been with Vodafone for more than two decades, will remain as an advisor until the end of March.
- “I agreed with the Board that now is the right moment to hand over to a new leader who can build on Vodafone’s strengths and capitalize on the significant opportunities that lie ahead,” said Read.
- Challenges for Vodafone intensified in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent energy costs skyrocketing while interest rates also rose. Read has faced pressure from investors, including Europe’s best-known activist fund Cevian Capital AB, the report added.
- Vodafone has never appointed an outside CEO, so Read’s potential successor may already have some connection to the company given his complexity, the cited report said Berenberg Analyst Carl Murdock-Smith.
- “Vodafone faces persistent headwinds as Germany falls under its weight, the cost of living crisis weakens support for market repair and the fastest-to-deliver transaction has already been announced,” he said Jefferies Analyst Jerry Dellis in a note.
- Vodafone reported revenue growth of 2% year-on-year to €22.93 billion in the first half of FY23, driven by service revenue growth and higher device sales.
- A decline in Germany and Italy impacted the development of the group’s service revenues, and Spain compensated…
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