Nick Read, chief executive of Vodafone, was pushing his luck in describing the group’s first-half performance as “resilient”, a word nobody would apply to the share price on his watch. He inherited 150p when he was promoted from finance director in 2018 and the poor old shareholders are now looking at 96p, down a thumping 8% on Tuesday.
Since 100p is virtually the lowest the shares had been in the past 20 years, a sense of brewing crisis is unmistakable. Once upon a time – albeit well before Read’s time in charge – Vodafone was the UK’s largest quoted company. Now it is 19th in the FTSE 100 pecking order.
