The increasingly embattled president and CEO of Global One, the joint venture that has been disappointing its three members Deutsche Telekom AG, France Telecom and Sprint Corp, has quit. Viesturs Vucins resigned last week and was immediately replaced by Gary Forsee who was has been president and chief operating officer of Sprint’s Long Distance Division for the past three years. Although, according to Sprint, Vucins left in order to pursue other interests his departure did come during a tough period at Global One. The global telecoms alliance recently announced higher-than-expected losses and that it would not break even until the year 2000 – two years later than Vucins had previously predicted. Losses at Global One for the year stood at $303m on revenues at up 35% at $1.1bn and both Sprint Corp and Deutsche Telekom blamed the alliance for disappointing year-end results. Deutsche Telekom said last month it had to pay 500m marks ($277m) in Global One costs, more than it had planned. Global One has been suffering from a range of problems including high start-up fees, difficulties in integrating the networks of its member companies as well as a tougher than expected competition. Last month Vucins said Global One finances had been hurt by price wars in Europe and that the venture had underestimated the effect its competition would have on its earnings when it set its profit targets in 1996. Forsee, whose appointment was decided by the CEOs of all three companies, is expected to set out his direction for the company over the next few weeks although according to Sprint, it will not differ greatly from Vucins’ own efforts. Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and Sprint have said they plan to invest more money in Global One, despite last year’s losses.
