Shhhhhhhh, be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet; I'm hunting wascally wabbits"

Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon Wireless, in which Vodafone holds a 45 per cent stake, has come over all Elmer Fudd-like, and has announced that Verizon is henceforth to be known as "The Hunter" in terms of any future consolidation ion the mobile sector.

His first act in what is expected to be a long drawn-out effort to show that Verizon is more of a predator rather than potential industry prey, is to put pressure on Vodafone to sell its stake. In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Mr. Seidenberg announced that he wants full ownership of the company. He said, “Would I like to have 100 per cent of the earnings given we’re doing 100 per cent of the work? Yeah, I would."

Verizon Communications and Vodafone combined their US mobile assets back in 2000 and have enjoyed (if that's the right word) a prickly relationship ever since. The relationship hit a particularly rocky patch in 2006 when Verizon tried, and completely failed to buy-out Vodafone's 45 per cent stake.

Arun Sarin, the soon to be gone chief executive of Vodafone also came under intense pressure from shareholders to cash-in its Verizon chips and use the money for dividends and to pay down debt. Sarin resisted the temptation, and although he had a rocky ride for a long time thereafter and came in for some severe criticism from institutional investors, it looks as though his prescience (or stubbornness) has paid off. Analysts say that the value of Vodafone's Verizon holding has increased in value by some US$10 billion over the past couple of years and is now worth $60 billion.

For the past year or so Verizon and Vodafone have rubbed along quite well together and Mr.