Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) CEO Vittorio Colao said the company’s board had an “open mind” about a sale of its 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), but emphasized that he thought that currently the “best thing” for the global telecoms firm was “to stay where we are,” according to the FT.com, covering a Morgan Stanley conference in Barcelona. It’s not exactly what Verizon Communications chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg chStrigl wants to hear. Seidenberg has said that he’d like to take full control of Verizon Wireless—noting in a July interview with the FT, “Would I like to have 100 percent of the earnings given we’re doing 100 percent of the work? Yeah, I would.” He even got his hopes up when Colao took over from Arun Sarin this summer, musing that the new CEO might want “to do something different.” Morgan Stanley analysts put the value of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, excluding Alltel (NYSE: AT), to be $40-50 billion.

• Verizon Communications Wants To Buy Out Vodafone’s Verizon Wireless Stake