Indosat buys Global stake

Indosat buys Global stake

CHICAGO (Reuter): Privately-owned discount telecommunications
firm, USA Global Link Inc, said Monday that PT Sisindosat, a
subsidiary of PT Indosat of Indonesia, had taken a 20 percent
equity stake in USA Global for US$20 million.

USA Global said it will use the proceeds to buy switches to
be installed in Japan, Europe and Asia in order to build a global
network.

USA Global -- which provides callback services, virtual
private networks and calling cards -- is a reseller of network
capacity on other carriers' networks. The company said it
envisages a initial public offering in late 1996.

PT Sisindosat will appoint one member to USA Global's nine-
member board of directors.

USA Global had 1995 revenues of $176 million.

Holland Taylor, president and co-founder of USA Global, told
Reuters the alliance offered the Indonesian partner an
opportunity to participate in the markets of other countries even
where facilities were monopoly-owned.

He said a similar deal might be tied up as a result of talks
with a national carrier in western European.

"We are in talks," he said.

Taylor said USA Global was moving toward owning more of its
own facilities, rather than purely acting as a reseller of the
facilities of others.

As an example of the advantages, he said it had bought an
indefeasible right of use to a North Atlantic cable -- a
permanent lease -- which costs only slightly more than a one-year
lease.