Nikesh Arora, President and COO, of global technology player and investment bank SoftBank Group (SBG) has resigned from his position.
Arora announced this development on micro blogging site Twitter.
"Masa to continue to be CEO for 5-10 years, respect that. Learnt a lot. Clean chit from the board after the review. Time to move on," Arora tweeted.
Alok Sama will continue as the CFO. He had joined Softbank last year.
The development comes just a day after Arora was given a clean chit by SBG following an allegation by US-based law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, which claimed to represent the interests of certain unidentified SBG and Sprint Corporation shareholders, against him for financial irregularities.
According to a SoftBank spokesperson that Masayoshi Son wanted to continue to be the CEO for a longer time and didn’t want to keep Arora as a CEO-in-waiting for an indefinite period.
She further added that Arora did not want to be re-elected as a representative director and has also stepped down from his post of Chairman from Yahoo Japan. He also resigned from his position as Director of Sprint, a US-based telecom firm that SoftBank acquired.
With Arora moving out, Ron Fisher, in partnership with Alok Sama, will take over management of the investment side of the business, SoftBank said, and added that the review committee’s findings and Arora’s ouster has no connection with each other.
The law firm, which had written an 11-page letter in January with allegations on Arora, had also questioned his credentials as the COO of SoftBank. It had also demanded an investigation into Arora and his dismissal.
Taking cognizance of the matter, SoftBank had formed a review committee in February.
The special committee comprising Independent Members of the SoftBank’s Board of Directors investigated and reviewed the matter and concluded that the claims concerning Arora’s conduct at SBG are without merit. It conducted its review with the assistance of independent counsels from Shearman & Sterling LLP and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune.
‘1,000% confidence’
Masayoshi Son, CEO of the Japanese conglomerate, said, “As I said when these allegations first became public, I have complete trust in Nikesh and I am pleased the special committee has looked into these claims thoroughly and concluded they are without merit.” Son had, all this while, maintained that he had “one thousand per cent” confidence in Arora. Arora, a former Google executive, joined SoftBank in 2014 as president and Chief Operating Officer with an annual package of $135 million, making him the world’s third-highest paid executive. He was even seen by many as Son’s heir apparent.
Ever since Arora joined SoftBank, the investment firm’s focus has shifted largely to the Indian market and it has made several big-ticket investments in start-ups such as Snapdeal, Ola, OYO Rooms and Housing.com.
Son has made several visits to India and was a ‘star attraction’ at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Startup India Stand Up India’ event in January. While SoftBank’s total investments in India have exceeded $10 billion, a few of them have gone “horribly” wrong, according to experts. For example, the company pumped in about $100 million in real-estate portal Housing.com, which has been struggling after the ouster of its founder Rahul Yadav. The company’s valuation fell from $250 million in November 2014, to $50 million in October 2015.