IT is a hoary old cliché that companies in the communications business are invariably awful at their own communications.

After Vodafone’s recent problems, that familiar jibe could be elevated to the status of law.

Over the past fortnight, those claiming to have Vodafone’s best interests at heart have created a situation where Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the mobile-phone group, is publicly seen to be at loggerheads with Arun Sarin, his chief executive.

Anonymous briefings have accused Sir Chris Gent, the pin-striped cricket-lover who turned Vodafone into a global giant, of seeking to undermine the man who succeeded him. Sarin’s attempts to make his mark have allegedly been frustrated by a faction of Gent’s former colleagues, aka “the Newbury mafia”. Uncomfortably for Sarin, MacLaurin appears to be an honorary member.

In the crossfire, MacLaurin has come under attack for agreeing to accept a £500,000 “pay-off” when he hands over to Sir John Bond in July. Two of Vodafone’s non-executive directors were reported to be urging their chairman to stand down early to end the crisis.

While all this was playing out in the newspapers last week, Sarin fired Peter Bamford, the chief marketing officer who had been a Vodafone director since 1998 — and who, coincidentally, used to work for MacLaurin at Tesco.

Vodafone’s most outspoken shareholder critic, David Cumming, head of UK equities at Standard Life, said the goings-on at the company were “a bit like the court of the Borgias on a bad day”.

Another senior figure, a friend of both Sarin and Gent, said: “The PR machine has spun out of control. They’re trying to deflect people’s attention from the main issue: why has the business basically gone nowhere for the past three years?” In the midst of all this boardroom intrigue, Vodafone’s international expansion strategy is beginning to unravel. Its struggling Japanese business, which Sarin had pledged to turn round, is to be sold at a huge loss. Only two years ago Sarin spent £2.6 billion buying out minority shareholders in the Japanese firm.

More significant still are last week’s developments in America’s telecoms market. AT&T’s $67 billion (£38 billion) agreed offer for Bell South has increased the pressure on Verizon to take full control of Verizon Wireless, the mobile firm in which Vodafone holds a 45% stake worth perhaps £30 billion. Vodafone’s retreat from America — and the enormous capital repayment that would accompany it — would be popular with Standard Life and some other shareholders, but Sarin has previously resisted it.

Theoretically, another possibility exists: a Vodafone bid for Verizon to create a converged, fixed-line and mobile telecoms group. But it is hard to see shareholders wearing such an enormously costly move when the board is in turmoil and when many feel they have seen little return from the many billions spent on past acquisitions.

As if to underline the point, Vodafone has just announced plans to write off up to £28 billion of goodwill on its balance sheet. This move is a recognition of slowing growth in the mobile-phone industry. For many, it is also an acknowledgement that Gent and MacLaurin overpaid for some of the businesses acquired in the millennial takeover frenzy, notably the £101 billion purchase of Germany’s Mannesmann.

Boardroom tension, strategic uncertainty, huge losses and accounting write-downs — and all at the same time. For a company of the size and stature of Vodafone, with its board packed with the elite of international business, this is an extraordinarily messy situation.

“They need to start behaving like grown-ups,” said William Claxton-Smith, director at Insight Investment. “They’re a bit like politicians — you’ve got two camps leaking to the press.”

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