Excerpts: Frontier to Be Acquired by Global Crossing for $10.8 Billion

• Frontier, which from 1900 until 1995 was called Rochester Telephone, serves almost one million local telephone customers in 13 states. Far more important from Global Crossing’s point of view, though, is that Frontier owns about one-third of an advanced fiber optic communications network being built by Qwest Communications International, the communications company controlled by Philip F. Anschutz, the reclusive oil and railroad magnate.
• Gary Winnick, Global Crossing’s founder and once an associate of Michael R. Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert, has raised more than $4 billion for Global Crossing to build and operate undersea fiber optic networks. But the company has lacked a significant presence in the United States.
• Just three weeks ago, Global Crossing hired as its chief executive Robert Annunziata, who had briefly run the AT&T Corporation’s business services unit after selling his previous company, Teleport Communications Group, to AT&T for more than $11 billion.
• Frontier’s shares closed at $50.50 yesterday, up $5.875, on the New York Stock Exchange. Global Crossing’s shares lost $4.375, to close at $47.125, in Nasdaq trading.
• Global Crossing also agreed to assume Frontier’s debt of about $1.3 billion.

Source: New York Times