NXLK will be taken out by someone sometime, I have no doubt about it, JMHO.......
Sunday July 18, 7:02 pm Eastern Time
INTERVIEW- Global Crossing sees other acquisitions
NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - Global Crossing Ltd. (Nasdaq:GBLX - news), which on Sunday ended its merger agreement with U S West Inc. (NYSE:USW - news), said it will look for new acquisitions to fill its fiber optic communications networks with voice and data traffic.
Start-up telecommunications companies Global Crossing and Qwest Communications International Inc. (Nasdaq:QWST - news) reached a truce in their takeover battle for U S West and Frontier Corp. (NYSE:FRO - news), with Qwest winning U S West and Global Crossing winning Frontier.
The compromise gives Global Crossing access to Frontier's network in the United States, while Qwest gains U S West's 25 million customers in 14 states from Minnesota to Washington.
Despite losing U S West, Global Crossing said its strategy remains unchanged. It will continue to build undersea and international fiber optic communications networks and search for customers to fill those networks with voice and data traffic.
Global Crossing said it look at potential acquisitions such as competitive local exchange carriers or telephone resellers to add customer traffic to its networks. It will also build local phone networks on its own.
''We will have the network with Frontier. We now will look even greater at 'How do you fill the network with products and services?' And that's either you have do it organically or if you see something that fits nicely then we'll do some acquisitions,'' Global Crossing's Chief Executive Bob Annunziata said in an interview.
''You do look at CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) or look at resellers. Clearly what we need to do is have more feet on the street or salespeople to grow it and have more products and services to fill the network,'' he said.
Global Crossing also is developing business plans to build its own local facilities, instead of relying solely on Frontier's operations as a reseller of local services, he said.
Annunziata has much experience in building local telephone operations. He developed local phone company Teleport Communications Group Inc., which AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news) acquired for about $11 billion last year.
Peter Treadway, a telecommunications analyst with Ryan, Beck & Co.'s Southeast Research, said Global Crossing may pursue CLECs that give it high speed data connections to customers.
Global Crossing also may pursue acquisitions in Europe to gain customers to fill its international networks with traffic, Treadway said.
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