Nikesh Arora finally resigns from SoftBank as President

Moneylife Digital Team 21 June 2016

Nikesh Arora, one of the highest paid executives in the world, has resigned from Japan-based Softbank Group Corp (SBG). He will continue to remain as an advisor to Softbank. According to Softbank, Arora's resignation from the position of Representative Director and Director of SBG will become effective with the expiration of the term of office at the conclusion of the 36th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders scheduled on 22 June 2016.

The resignation comes after unverified reports of disagreement between Arora and CEO Masayoshi Son as regards to when Arora would replace Son as head of the group. He was earlier touted as Masayoshi Son's successor. Son 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.”

This resignation has surprised many market watchers as he was given a clean chit in an internal investigation conducted by Softbank to review the allegations that a group of investors had raised against Arora. The allegations were levelled by a group of anonymous investors through law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune. They levelled allegations like having conflict of interest as he was also senior advisor to private equity firm SilverLake. He was also under criticism for some of the investments made under his tenure. A letter to the Board of Sprint, which is controlled by Softbank, also asked for his removal as Director.

Nikesh Arora was one of the highest paid global executives with a whopping pay package of around $73 million (Rs490 crore) for FY15-16. This high-flying executive earlier had a decade-long stint with Google Inc. after which he joined Softbank in 2014. Under his tenure, Softbank made investments in many Indian e-commerce ventures like Snapdeal, Ola Cabs, Housing.com and Oyo Rooms. Softbank is also the biggest shareholder in e-commerce major Alibaba.

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