Only two years after taking the helm at T-Mobile USA, CEO Philipp Humm has resigned, in the continuing fall-out from the failure of the company’s planned merger with AT&T last year. He is joining Vodafone to become chief executive of that operator’s Northern & Central Europe operating region, newly created in its recent restructuring, and will be responsible for markets such as the UK, Germany, Turkey and the Czech Republic. T-Mobile USA chief operating officer Jim Alling will take over as interim CEO while a permanent replacement is found. Ironically, his decision was announced as his firm agreed a spectrum swap deal with Verizon, which ‘ combined with licences obtained as part of the break-up fee from AT&T ‘ could go a long way to making TMo viable, in spectrum terms, as a 4G carrier, the key goal of the AT&T plan in the first place.
Humm took the wheel at the Deutsche Telekom unit in May 2010 when his predecessor, Robert Dotson, quit for ‘personal reasons’. In a letter to employees, reported by Reuters, DT’s CEO, Rene Obermann, said Humm had informed him of his decision in April and was leaving to join a competitor. Some observers blamed the AT&T failure and DT’s continuing quest to find a new solution for its US arm ‘ with a replacement acquirer unlikely to be found, this could involve a spin-off, IPO or joint venture. Humm, known as a turnaround specialist, could still be right person to effect such change, especially as the ultimately disastrous choice to pursue the AT&T deal was not his personal mistake but directed from the parent firm. But he is likely to have grown frustrated with the long stagnation imposed by the regulatory review of the merger plan last year.
Jefferies analyst Ulrich Rathe wrote in a client note: “We have long argued that notwithstanding current measures to stabilize the operating performance (including the roll-out of high speed LTE wireless technology), DT is working towards a strategic solution to the fundamental problem at T-Mobile USA: lack of scale driving sub-par returns. Clearly, working as the CEO of an asset that is subject to such uncertainty would likely increase the attractiveness of competing career options.’
In other words, the ambitious spectrum refarming program and LTE-Advanced roll-out plan, detailed by TMo in recent months, may be more about making the unit attractive to partners or new investors, rather than a genuine decision by DT to pursue its own 4G destiny in the US long term. In either case, the proposed deal with Verizon will be a significant boost.
At Vodafone, Humm will take part in Vodafone’s group executive committee, joining the firm from October 1 and reporting to the CEO. The giant operator has split its European region into two, with Paolo Bertoluzzo, currently head of Vodafone Italy, taking the helm at the Southern Europe division, which includes Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece). Humm joined Deutsche Telekom in 2005 to head up its mobile business in Germany before becoming responsible for sales and services activities for its European mobile companies.
This may leave current European chief Michel Combes out in the cold. He was supposed to be joining French cellco SFR ‘ formerly a Vodafone joint venture but now fully owned by media giant Vivendi ‘ on August 1, as CEO. However, that plan seems to have been shelved, according to reports, with the abrupt departure of Vivendi’s CEO Jean-Bernard Levy. This makes the divestment of SFR more likely, and according to Bloomberg, Vivendi’s chairman has dashed Combes’ hopes that he might progress from SFR to head up the whole group. Levy quit amid a disagreement with the board about the strategic direction of the group. He had been temporarily caretaking at SFR, having forced out the unit’s previous chief Franck Esser, and Vivendi moved quickly to shift its head of human resources, Stephane Roussel, into the gap.