Ex-Execs to Make Bid for Piece of Global

A group of former top executives of Frontier Corp. unveiled plans Wednesday to bid for the U.S. portion of Global Crossing Ltd.’s communications network.

The group is led by Anthony J. Cassara, who was president of the carrier business at Frontier and then at Global Crossing after it acquired Frontier. Cassara has run his own telecommunications consulting group since leaving Global Crossing nearly two years ago.

Cassara said the group has not hashed out the financial details, but is considering teaming up with other investors to buy and run the part of Global Crossing’s network once run by Frontier.

The group does not plan to bid for the entire company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in late January.

“If they are going to entertain offers for parts of the business, then I think we’re going to have a good presentation,” Cassara said. “This team that we put together is essentially the team that built and ran that [$2-billion] business.”

Also on Wednesday, a Global Crossing shareholder group hoping to revive the company demanded information about the connections between Global Crossing officials and two potential Asian investors.

The shareholder group, which is represented by investment firm KAB Group, asked the company to provide within 30 days “all it knows about any past or present relationships” between company officers and anybody associated with Hutchison Whampoa Limited and Singapore Technologies Telemedia.

In late January, Hutchison and STT agreed to invest $750 million in return for a 79% stake in the reorganized company. As part of the letter of intent, Global Crossing agreed to pay $10 million in expenses for the two Asian firms, as well as a breakup fee of at least $40 million if the deal doesn’t proceed.

Global Crossing spokeswoman Cynthia Artin said the company “intends to assist in any way we can.”

The KAB request comes as new questions are being raised about the involvement of auditor Andersen in the now-controversial accounting practices at Global Crossing, Qwest Communications International and other telecommunications firms.

Andersen issued a “white paper” for use by its clients and others, advising them how to record network capacity “swaps” between carriers. Critics say the method that became standard practice is misleading because it overstates revenue and spreads the corresponding costs over many years.

It’s unclear who wrote the Andersen paper. Joseph Perrone, a former partner at the auditing firm, had written earlier memos about the accounting practices at issue. Perrone was Global Crossing’s main contact at Andersen for several years before he became a financial executive at Global Crossing.