Vodafone share price: Group’s UK chief to head Dutch JV

The chief executive of Vodafone Group’s (LON:VOD) UK business will head the telco’s Dutch joint venture with Liberty Global, the FTSE 100 company has said. The news comes as the group unveiled an executive shake-up which will also see the company’s enterprise boss take over as chief executive of Vodafone UK.

Vodafone’s share price meanwhile has slipped into the red, having shed 0.73 percent to 224.05p as of 10:29 BST. The shares are slightly underperforming the benchmark FTSE 100 index which currently stands 0.49 percent in the red at 6,662.71 points. The company’s shares have lost more than five percent of their value over the past year, but have recovered a little over one percent in the year-to-date.

Vodafone and Liberty Global announced in a statement this morning that they had decided to appoint Jeroen Hoencamp as chief executive of their proposed 50-50 joint venture business in the Netherlands. Hoencamp is currently the head of Vodafone’s UK business. In anticipation of the joint venture closing, the FTSE 100 telco said that he will assume the position of Chief Executive of Vodafone Netherlands, effective September 1. The chief financial officer of Liberty’s Ziggo, Ritchy Drost, meanwhile will take the top finance job at the joint venture.
The two companies agreed the deal earlier this year, noting that they would create a 50-50 joint venture offering video, broadband, mobile and B2B services, as they look to better compete with local rival KPN.
The FTSE 100 telco announced in a separate statement that its enterprise chief executive Nick Jeffery would succeed Hoencamp at the helm of Vodafone UK.
“Jeroen and Nick are two of the Group’s most experienced and proven senior executives with an extensive history of operational, strategic and fixed-mobile integration leadership,” the group’s chief executive Vittorio Colao said in the statement, adding that the appointments would “strengthen our Netherlands and UK businesses as our convergence strategy in those markets continues to gather pace”.
The executive shake-up comes ahead of Vodafone’s quarterly update on Friday.
As of 10:54 BST, Tuesday, 19 July, Vodafone Group plc share price is 224.07p.