Posted: 06/2000

Global Crossing’s Internet Sub Files for IPO
By Ken Branson

GlobalCenter Inc. (www.globalcenter.com), the Internet hosting and service subsidiary of Global Crossing Ltd.
(www.globalcrossing.com), has filed for an initial public offering
(IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov).

At press time, the asking price for the shares had not been determined, nor had the IPO date been set.

GlobalCenter began as a business-oriented ISP in the early 1990s. The former Frontier Corp. acquired it in 1997 and then, with Frontier, Global Crossing bought it a year ago.

Along the way it has built up a respected complex web-hosting business, sporting such customers as Yahoo! Inc.
(www.yahoo.com) and The Washington Post
(www.washingtonpost.com), constructing 10 data centers with nine more in the works, and expanding its professional services offerings.

GlobalCenter has seen its revenues climb from $7.7 million in 1997 to $70.9 million in 1999. Its losses have followed the reverse trajectory, from $59.5 million in 1997 to $2.8 million last year.

In a way, GlobalCenter continues to do what it was doing when Global Crossing purchased its parent. But it has two things it didn’t have before Global Crossing acquired it. One is access to the Global Crossing IP network worldwide. Only one existing data center, in Melbourne, Australia, is not directly connected to the network. The other is Leo Hindery, who became CEO of GlobalCenter last December and CEO of Global Crossing in March, and the team he brought aboard to take the company public.

Hindery ran the former Tele-Communications Inc. before AT&T
(www.att.com) bought it, and then ran AT&T Broadband Services.

“We come from management positions doing different things, a blend of cable and telephony and Internet,” says Laurie Priddy, the co-COO with Derek Chang. Priddy worked for Hindery at AT&T as president and CEO of the National Digital Television Center.

Hindery and his team have focused on four market segments: entertainment and media, finance, retail, and business-to-business exchanges.