LONDON (Dow Jones)--Just weeks after Chairman Richard Lapthorne attacked investors for undervaluing Cable & Wireless shares here's yet another in a very long line of profit warnings.

As usual though, C&W warnings come with a difference. These are never just halfhearted affairs that knock a few cents off earnings so it's hardly surprising the shares tanked, as some analysts reckon 2007 earnings projections need to be cut in half.

Yet another of those seemingly radical business reorganizations was announced too. This one splits the group into two halves, accompanied by the exit of CEO Francesco Caio after just 33 months.

Not that Caio will disappear - he'll stay on after the end of the financial year to give a helping hand to this latest, and surely most ridiculous, of all C&W's many business transitions.

Caio may not have done well for C&W shareholders but he has certainly done well for himself.

When originally appointed in April 2003 Caio's base salary was GBP700,000 with a maximum bonus of GBP150,000 subject to meeting performance targets.

And because he would be commuting from Italy he also got a three-year housing allowance, not to mention a guaranteed first-year minimum bonus of GBP375,000. And in recognition of foregone arrangements with previous employer Netscalibur, he also received a one-off payment of GBP375,000 in C&W shares that had to be held for a minimum of three years.

Not bad - and very convenient that by the time Caio relinquishes the CEO post the three years will be up, meaning the shares can be sold. It's not the first time Caio got his timing right: he joined the board of Allied Domecq just months before the drinkmaker was swallowed up by Pernod.

But what have C&W shareholders got during Caio's term?

Judging by the dunking the shares got Tuesday, not a lot - save a company that is clearly putting itself up for sale.

True, C&W is profitable - just. That's very different from when Caio took over to help Lapthorne sort out the mess former CEO Graham Wallace and others had created after they amassed GBP16 billion in disposal proceeds and wasted most of it trying to expand C&W Global.

Amazingly, after that sad affair - which took shares down from around GBP10 to at one stage as low as 60 pence- C&W was still cash rich. But instead of returning cash to shareholders as the old regime had done, Caio went out and spent more cash on more acquisitions like Bulldog and Energis.

C&W says that Caio won't be replaced as the company splits itself in two. That's the good news, but it isn't saying a lot.

Investors, meanwhile, may be moved to hang on, if they've made it this far. At least the ailing telecoms company recently returned to the dividend list.

And it's all but inevitable that the troubled U.K. business will soon be snapped up, though surely not by Iceland's richest man, Bjorgolfur Thor Bjorgolfson.

Ten years after the proposed merger with BT fell apart, and when C&W was actually larger than BT, perhaps it will be a much strengthened BT that finally absorbs its great British competitor.