rewrite this title and make it good for SEOVodafone CFO Luka Mucic to step down in surprise move

(Reuters) -Vodafone finance chief Luka Mucic will be stepping down after less than three years in the role, the mobile group said on Wednesday, in a surprise move that could cloud the company’s prospects.

The shift in management comes amid Vodafone’s efforts to revive deteriorating performance in its biggest market, Germany. In February, its shares fell more than 6% and erased gains made in the past 12 months after Vodafone reported another drop in service revenue in the Germany. They have recovered since, but fell 1.4% on Wednesday after Mucic’s move was announced.

Mucic, 53, has taken up an offer to be CEO of Germany’s largest landlord Vonovia SE, as the company swaps out its long-serving chief executive in a bid to recover from an industry-wide real estate slump.

“Whilst I look forward to the next step in my career back in my native Germany, it has been rewarding to help shape the transformation and I have the utmost confidence of Vodafone’s future success,” Mucic said in a statement.

JPMorgan analyst Akhil Dattani in a note said while Mucic’s departure from Vodafone will “clearly come as a surprise,” and is a “major blow” for the company, “his desire to pursue this new opportunity, is understandable.”

The company has been hit by the end of pay-TV bulk contracts in apartment blocks in Germany, which came into full effect last year. It has warned that the financial hit to that market would take a few quarters to wash through.

Mucic, a German national who formerly also served as finance chief at SAP, was appointed as Vodafone’s chief financial officer in September 2023.

He will be stepping down no later than early 2026, the company said.

Vodafone said that a “rigorous” search for his successor is ongoing, with an update expected in due course.

JPMorgan’s Dattani said it could prove difficult to identify and attract top-talent given the timing constraints imposed by the move, which will also raise concerns about visibility.

Vodafone is set to report its annual results on May 20.

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Sharon Singleton)