I can't believe Global Crossing is 10 years old. The company was founded in Bermuda by financier Gary Winnick in 1997, but actually gets most of its business done from an administrative headquarters New Jersey. It once looked as if it wouldn't survive its first five years, let alone 10. The company epitomized both the telecom exuberance of the 1990s and the thrashing the industry received for that exuberance in the next decade.
Captained early on by former AT&T executive and industry stalwart Robert Annunziata, Global Crossing went through a succession of CEOs in its first five years or so before declaring bankruptcy in 2002. The culprits involved an over-ambitious plan to build an international fiber network, excessive non-network spending, huge personal loans extended to some executives and other alleged financial misbehavior (At least two executives later were fined after an SEC investigation).
But, more recently, Global Crossing, having survived bankruptcy, has been steered onto a comeback trail by CEO John Legere. The company is posting higher revenues, has more than 700 carrier customers for all of its fiber bandwidth, and also has aggressively moved into the enterprise market. Global Crossing's second quarter earnings report last week suggested it still has work to do, but is making progress.
For further analysis of those results, read this report from Ovum's EuroView Daily Comment Service.