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* Italian executive streamlined Vodafone with asset sales
* 51-year-old rose quickly from McKinsey to Vodafone
* Shrewd deal-making takes shares to 12-year high
* Colao lands elusive $130 bln deal that will remake group
By Leila Abboud and Kate Holton
PARIS/LONDON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Vittorio Colao, the urbaneItalian boss of Vodafone, believes that negotiatingmajor deals is an art whose finest practitioners know how towield power and resist pressure.
The 51-year-old chief executive, who cut his teeth as amanagement consultant at McKinsey, used these lessons at thenegotiating table to do what his predecessors could not: outlastVerizon Communications in a test of will over the biggestU.S. mobile provider, Verizon Wireless.
Those who know him say Colao used patience, an acute senseof timing, pragmatism, and a ruthless streak to agree a $130billion sale of Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless.
Colao also drew on a stronger and more trusting relationshipwith Lowell McAdam, Verizon Communications CEO, meeting him overdinner and wine, and sharing a passion for cycling that saw themonce do a 50km (30 miles) race together.
"He's a very good negotiator of deals because he is verycalm," said Michel Combes, Alcatel-Lucent's CEO who worked withColao as the head of Vodafone's European operations.
"Colao always has several possible scenarios in his mind todeal with a particular issue. Then he makes a quick decisionwhen an opportunity presents itself."
Born in northern Italy, the son of an officer in thecarabinieri military police and a mother who spoke six languagesand worked in publishing, Colao polished his gold-plated resumeat three top universities including Harvard.
After making partner at McKinsey working on telecom, mediaand tech from Milan, in 1996 he joined Omnitel, the telecomsgroup that became Vodafone Italy.
Three years later, he was running Vodafone Italy where hestarted building relationships with Verizon executives who wereon the unit's board because they shared its ownership.
TOP JOB
Those ties were part of why Arun Sarin, the prior Vodafoneboss, tapped Colao for the top job in 2008. "Sarin knew thatdealing with the Verizon stake was going to be one of the majorissues his successor would face. Colao had the advantage thatthe U.S. side knew and respected him," said someone who knowsboth men.
"It was definitely one of the things that played in hisfavour when he got the CEO job."
According to Vodafone's annual report, Colao took home 3.4million pounds in salary and benefits last year.
Despite his ambitious nature, the lanky 6 foot 3 inch tallbespectacled executive dislikes talking about himself and isabsent from London's social scene, leading a quiet life in SouthKensington with his wife and two children.
He likes the cut and thrust of talking to journalists, andarguing about telecom regulations he sees as wrongheaded, but isalso a private person who does not do small talk, say people whoknow him.
Another of Colao's attributes is his deep knowledge ofVodafone's international operations. He likes dropping inunannounced at Vodafone stores from London to Mumbai to check onstaff and see what products are selling well or poorly.
He doesn't micro manage though. Country managers "are leftalone unless the wheels fall off, and then Colao is all over itand people get hauled over the coals," said one insider.
Colao's attention to detail and strategic planning mean thatinvestment bankers do not bother to pitch him ideas for dealsany more. "He has a very clear view on the strategy so it's moreof a collegial discussion," said one banker.
He also avoids negotiating from a position of weakness,always having a back-up plan to the buy. As Colao was studying abid for Germany's biggest cable operator Kabel Deutschland thisspring he also signed a deal with Deutsche Telekom that leftVodafone less reliant on the fixed acquisition.
STORMY POLITICS
Colao has calmed the stormy internal politics at Vodafonethat bedevilled Sarin. The discipline filters down tocommunications strategy: Colao is the public face of Vodafoneand rarely allows other top executives to speak to the press.
Colao's career has not been free of missteps, however. In2004, he left Vodafone after Sarin rebuked him during a boardmeeting over a pitch to acquire a company in Bulgaria. The talkin the company at the time was that Sarin chastised Colao fornot having visited the country.
Colao left to lead Italy's RCS Media Group, which ownsCorriere della Sera, and tried to restructure the publisher butfell foul of shareholders who included Italy's most powerfulbankers and businessmen.
In 2006 he sought refuge back at Vodafone and was made headof Southern Europe. He stepped up to the CEO chair in 2008.
Since then, Colao has shown his skill as a clean-up man bytrimming the overseas empire that his predecessors had built upvia acquisitions. He sold a minority stake in China Mobile, thenexited France and Poland, allowing him to return 23 billionpounds to shareholders in the past three years.
The sale of a 49 percent stake in SFR, France's secondbiggest telco, to majority shareholder Vivendi for 7.95billion euros in April 2011 was a deft coup. Colao got topdollar for an asset that has plummeted in value since thearrival of low-cost player Iliad in January 2012.
Yet Colao's record as a buyer of assets and as a builder ofbusinesses is seen as less strong. His foray into social mediain 2009 with Vodafone 360 was a failure.
Equally, some investors think he took too long to decide tobuy fixed line assets - now seen as a core strategy for thegroup.
Vodafone passed up on buying Kabel Deutschland before itspublic listing in March 2010 at about 22 euros a share. Fouryears later, Colao bought it for nearly four times as much.
"I think it (was) the right deal but they should have doneit sooner and it was so widely trailed they paid more than theyhad to," one top 10 shareholder told Reuters.
Investors worry that with the Verizon deal done, Colao couldsoon bow out. A few years ago he confided to friends that hewould like to be Italy's foreign minister, although hispolitical ambitions are said to have ebbed since then.
On Monday, however, Colao said he was "super committed tothe next chapter of Vodafone", something that will pleaseinvestors wanting him to rebuild the group without Verizon.
"The market does not want to see him leave," said one top 30investor.
