Talk:Global Crossing
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I'm curious as to why this page, as of 3/30/04, uses the term "former" when describing John Legere's status as a CEO of Global Crossing. He is the current CEO.
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[edit] I plan to make some more changes unless anyone objects
At the moment this article reads like a cluster of factoids rather than a coherent article. I've already removed some of the more subjective stuff and some errors but plan to shape it up a bit more unless anyone objects.
--Jedawson 20:54, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
Go for it. I know I have seen some things regarding how the workers were "screwed over" in the whole thing. I'll look for info that is reliable and NPOV.
However, "The on-line account maintenance and ordering tool for Global Crossing Ltd is called UCommand." is giving me problems. I had to read it five times before I could figure out what it meant, and even now I'm not 100% sure. At present it is just another factoid in the cluster, but I can't even imagine how it would fit into any kind of heading. ````
I think the article misses the core business of Global Crossing, as a telephone long distance carrier, its current struggles in overcoming cost-of-access, its success as the largest VoIP carrier in the world, and its forseeable telecommunications role in the future. I read it as pretty negative, overall, from the onset.
[edit] Many missing details
Global Crossing paid about $10 billion for Frontier, then sold off its GlobalCenter division for $6 billion to Exodus (paid in Exodus stock) and Frontier's local telco assets to Citizens Communications for $4 (?) billion in cash--which looked brilliant at the time, as though it had obtained Frontier for free. But Exodus filed for bankruptcy and the value of the Exodus stock went to zero during the lockup period, and a number of GlobalCenter assets (such as facilities with long-term leases) came back to Global Crossing.
Also, Global Crossing paid a billion or two for Racal Telecom in the UK (one of the prizes of the current Global Crossing, Global Crossing UK), and a similar amount for IPC/IXnet, a financial communications services provider based in NYC. IPC was sold to J.P. Morgan (?), and IXnet's "hoot & holler" voice services were sold to Westcom.
Most of these details can be found in press releases and SEC filings, and are key to understanding why Global Crossing had to file for bankruptcy and how it has subsequently changed its business. Lippard 01:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The political contributions section is weak, and would benefit from a review of the information in http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/alertv6_40.asp to beef it up. Lippard 15:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "for tax evasion purposes"?
tax evasion is pejorative and implies illegality. Is that supported by fact? --Jasonuhl 17:50, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to be in the current version. I've never seen tax evasion charges leveled against Global Crossing, though headquartering in Bermuda is a common tax *avoidance* strategy (since U.S. corporate taxes are high compared to many other countries including most of Europe). Lippard 15:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] I worked for a subsidiary before the bankruptcy
We were sold a bill of goods and encouraged to buy stock in and out of our 401k plans. I don't know how this could be worked into the article but this is the essence of how the workers were screwed. The execs lied to the workers about the solvency of the company. This would have been in early 2001. Dmooney
There was an employee stock-purchase program (ShareBuilder--it's common at many companies) which was around at Frontier and then at Global Crossing. Everyone loved it while the stock was climbing, and many employees foolishly put their entire 401K contributions into company stock (this is everywhere and always a bad idea--diversification is how you manage risk). I personally never heard any encouragement from company management to do this. Gary Winnick gave $25 million to the employee 401K funds after bankruptcy, which replenished about 25% of the losses due to company stock.
The executives generally tried to put a positive spin on things to keep morale up (as executives are known to do to keep a company running), and they were obviously proven wrong when the company filed for bankruptcy on January 28, 2002. I believe Legere made public statements to the effect that bankruptcy was not in the cards around November 2001; if Global Crossing had already engaged the Blackstone group to plan for bankruptcy at that time, then those statements must have been knowing falsehoods. There should be documentation from the lawsuits to indicate any specific misrepresentations by executives.
The employees hurt the most were those laid off shortly before the bankruptcy filing, whose severance payments were cut off by the bankruptcy filing--there were lots of press reports about such employees, especially in Rochester, NY, where Rep. Louise Slaughter addressed the issue.
In general, however, bankruptcy forced positive changes to Global Crossing as a company--it cleaned out lots of duplicative management structure, forced integration of groups from various mergers and acquisitions that were doing the same things in different ways, and greatly improved internal communication and efficiency--which resulted in improved network performance and higher customer satisfaction survey scores. Lippard 15:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] I worked for them too
Again in a subsiduary, which would have been bought by GX in 2000 not long before they hired me in October that year. We were certainly encouraged to buy the stock, although at the time the offer was on the table for me the price in the employee scheme was actually higher than the market price and the stock was dropping every day, but many of my colleagues lost money, and ultimately we all lost our jobs in 2003. Certainly from where I was within the company there was a great deal of rumour and inuendo about what was going on within the company and its legality. I never saw anything presonally that would corroborate what I was told, which included tax evasion, over-billing customers, fabricating figures, and breaching employment laws, but within a company that created so much ill feeling amongst its employees I'm not surprised a great many of us thought they were essentially crooked. Feelings run high about that period in the company history and no insider will have an entirely objective view. Jmem 11:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC) jmem
