The head of Britain’s biggest mobile phone company could walk off with more than £25 million after announcing his unexpected departure from the group.

Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, said last month that he would be stepping down in July, although he will be staying on as a consultant on a “nominal” salary.

The Indian-born American, 53, said that he intends to go travelling. Having accumulated a total of £22 million in shares and a salary of just under £3.6 million last year, Mr Sarin, who according to The Sunday Times Rich List is already worth about £60 million, will be able to travel in considerable style.

Mr Sarin, who is credited with having transformed Vodafone from a company reliant on European markets to a global player, will be wary of squandering his fortune, having been born into an Indian Army family that lost much of its wealth after Partition in 1947.

After being schooled in Bangalore and attending the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, Mr Sarin moved to America, where he gained an MBA at the University of California.

His telecoms career began in 1984 when he was asked to evaluate whether a company called PacTel could make a go of “this thing called a cellular licence” that it owned in Los Angeles. He rose to number two at PacTel’s mobile offshoot, AirTouch, making £17 million when it was sold to Vodafone in 1999. He then headed Vodafone’s US business until he helped to merge it with a rival company, a move that meant he left the group. However, he returned to head the entire group in 2003, replacing Sir Christopher Gent, one of Britain’s most revered dealmakers.

His time at the helm coincided with enormous growth in the mobile markets. He had to survive a rocky patch in 2005 when infighting culminated in demands for his resignation from one of Vodafone’s main shareholders.

According to Vodafone’s annual report, released yesterday, Mr Sarin has 28.5 million shares and share options that he cannot sell until he leaves his consultancy role in 2009. Valued at the current share price they are worth about £12 million. He also has a further 14.5 million shares and share options, worth £10.1 million, that can be cashed in immediately.

Mr Sarin’s bonus – more than one and a half times his salary – will be paid in cash as he will not be eligible to reinvest it in the company as he has done in the past. The bonus was based on meeting financial as well as customer satisfaction targets.

Meanwhile, the British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh, who has waived his bonus after the Heathrow Terminal 5 debacle, is in line for a bumper bonus next year – if the company meets targets more heavily weighted towards customer service. Mr Walsh, who was entitled in theory to a bonus worth up to 100 per cent of his £700,000 base salary last year, could see an extra 150 per cent payout on top of an improved £735,000 basic salary this year.

In order to take home the potential £1.8 million windfall Mr Walsh will have to ensure that the airline meets targets on profitability, that enough flights are on time and that customers are satisfied.

Pay as you go

— Arun Sarin’s predecessor at Vodafone, Sir Christopher Gent, walked away with a £15.5 million pension and about £6.5 million in salary, shares and share options for his final year when he retired at the end of 2003. He was also given a £100,000 Bentley Arnage

— Peter Erskine, who stood down as head of O2 in January this year, left with a package of almost £21 million

— Former Chelsea boss José Mourinho took £12 million, thought to be the highest payoff for a football manager in Britain, when he was sacked last year, doubling Sven-Göran Eriksson’s £6 million Source: Times archives

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