Global Crossing: 1997-2011 жылдардағы телекоммуникациялық компания тарихы

US telecommunications company, 1997–2011

Global Crossing Limited, was a telecommunications company that provided computer networking services and operated a tier 1 carrier. It maintained a large backbone network and offered peering, virtual private networks, leased lines, audio and video conferencing, long distance telephone, managed services, dialup, colocation centres and VoIP. Its customer base ranged from individuals to large enterprises and other carriers, with emphasis on higher margin layered services such as managed services and VoIP with leased lines. Its core network delivered services to more than 700 cities in more than 70 countries. Global Crossing was the first global communications provider with IPv6 natively deployed in both its private and public networks. It was legally domiciled in Bermuda and had its administrative headquarters in New Jersey. In 1999, during the dot com bubble, the company was valued at $47 billion, but it never had a profitable year. In 2002, the company filed for one of the largest bankruptcies in history and its executives were accused of covering up an accounting scandal.

In March 1997, Global Crossing was founded by Gary Winnick, the former manager of the bond desk of Drexel Burnham Lambert, and his Drexel colleagues who moved on to work at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC): Abbott L. Brown, David L. Lee, and Barry Porter. In 1997, the company raised $35 million, including investments by Winnick and the CIBC Argosy Merchant Funds (later Trimaran Capital Partners). Winnick was chairman of the company from 1997 until 2002. In 1998, he hired Lodwrick Cook, former CEO of Atlantic Richfield Company, as co chairman. John Scanlon became the first CEO of the company in the same year, but was replaced in March 1999 by Robert Annunziata, who had resigned as president of AT&T Corporation's Business Services group to "build a company from start to finish". but was outbid by Qwest. In July 1999, the company acquired Global Marine Systems, the undersea cable maintenance arm of Cable & Wireless, for $885 million. Later that year, in September 1999, the company acquired Frontier Communications, the former Rochester Telephone Corporation, for $9.9 billion and renamed it Global Crossing North America. That same month, Global Crossing acquired 49% of SB Submarine Systems,

In January 2000, the company formed a 50/50 joint venture with Hutchison Whampoa, valued at $1.2 billion, for a fiber optic network in Hong Kong. In March 2000, Annunziata resigned, receiving $160 million during his 13 month tenure. Leo Hindery, who had joined the company a few months earlier as head of its web hosting division, GlobalCenter, then became CEO. In September 2000, the company announced a deal to sell GlobalCenter to Exodus Communications for $6.5 billion in stock. By the time the deal closed in January 2001, the stock was only worth $1.95 billion. Hindery then resigned as CEO and was replaced with Thomas Casey, a lawyer who came to Global Crossing from Merrill Lynch, where he was co head of the global telecom investment banking group. For the year 2000, the company lost $1.4 billion. In the summer of 2001, the company began discussing a transaction with Enron in which the company would pay Enron $650 million for its fiber optic network in exchange for Enron paying the company $650 million to use the network, a move that would boost both companies' revenues without costing them anything. The transaction did not materialize.

Despite the massive layoffs, unpaid employees, and cancelled pensions as a result of the bankruptcy, executives received huge bonuses and loan relief.

In August 2000, the company was involved in an attempted rescue of a Russian submarine during the Kursk submarine disaster. Global Crossing's undersea cable division contracted with British Defense Ministry to operate the LR5 rescue submersible. As part of the agreement, Global Crossing was to keep it on call for emergencies.