Microsoft and Softbank each owned about 16 percent of Asia Global Crossing on the day it went public. The rest of the control sat with Global Crossing, the American cable builder. Together they bet that Asian internet traffic would explode and that whoever owned the fiber under the sea would carry it. In October 2000 the company raised $476 million, laying a trans-Pacific cable and building networks in Japan and Hong Kong.

Three Partners, One Ocean

Global Crossing formed the company in September 1999 and brought in Microsoft and Softbank that November. The plan called for a pan-Asian carrier selling internet, data and voice capacity to other carriers and big businesses. It owned a trans-Pacific subsea cable, a data center in Tokyo and the largest all-fiber network in Hong Kong. It was building an East Asian cable to tie the region's cities together. Every piece cost a fortune, and most of it was borrowed.

Seven Dollars and a Glut

The IPO priced at $7 a share on October 10, 2000, for 68 million shares. Within months the world had far more fiber than traffic. Prices for capacity collapsed, and its parent Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy in January 2002. Asia Global Crossing followed on November 17, 2002, filing for Chapter 11 as it agreed to sell its operations to Asia Netcom, a group backed by China Netcom. Its shares were deregistered in June 2003.

Cover: Ferry Crossing at Sakasai (Sakasai no watashi), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo", Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a ferry crossing (crossing the sea).