Punters betting high on Sarin's exit from Vodafone

LONDON: Vodafone chief Arun Sarin may have pulled off the biggest deal in India, but he does not seem to be the poster boy for the company's investors as the telecom major's scrip moved North in the wake of rumours of his exit from the company, according to British media.
   
"It was a good day for shareholders of telecom giant Vodafone but a bad one for chief executive Arun Sarin. The stock rose 8.5 pence to 179.5 pence on the back of market rumours that Sarin, whose strategy has been criticised in some quarters, might have decided to resign," said The Telegraph in one of its market analysis reports on October 12.

The paper, however, said that the company had "dismissed the speculation saying that it was wide of the mark."
    
Shares of Vodafone on FTSE 100, the benchmark index of the London Stock Exchange, grew to 179.5 pence on October 11 from 171 pence the previous day. It remained flat on Friday.
    
The market movement on speculation about his future in the company, followed Sarin's visit earlier in the week to India where he met Finance Minister P Chidambaram amidst reports about the 1.7 billion dollar tax row that his group company Vodafone Essar is having with Indian authorities.
   
A BTech graduate from IIT Kharagpur, Sarin, despite plucking a slew of major telecom deals across the world, has been under pressure from shareholders for the past few years.
   
He was on the verge of losing the top job for the amount of investment made by Vodafone in 2005 to acquire Turkey's Telsim at 4.5 billion dollar.
   
Last year, a group of Vodafone share holders protested about underperfoming shares and the perceived lack of ability by Sarin to cope with the challenges facing the company.

The Telegraph in its year-end review in 2005 said, "The big shots, who must hit the target in 2006, had pointed that Vodafone's shares had tumbled, putting the company on a stock market rating below that of BT."