telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd. has been approved for a secondary listing on the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

The company, which lauched an initial public offering of 21 million shares August 14 on the NASDAQ Stock Market, plans on substantially beefing up its presence on the Island.

After the first day of trading in which the stock price shot up from $19 per share to $25.50 the initial offering gave the company a market capitalisation of $3.84 billion. At the close of the first day of trading the market capitalisation stood at $5.15 billion. The stock now trades at between $22 and $23.

The BSX has approved the listing of up to 230,739,685 of the company's common shares. The listing solidifies the company's commitment to a global headquarters in Bermuda.

Global Crossing was incorporated in Bermuda as an exempted limited liability company April 30 this year. The company plans on basing its worldwide network operations and customer care centre at the former baselands in St. David's.

The company is laying a worldwide network of digital fibre optic cable systems -- including a link through Bermuda -- so as to sell capacity to international telecommunications companies.

"The company operates as a `carriers' carrier', providing tiered pricing and segmented products to licensed providers of international Internet and telecommunications services,'' a US Securities and Exchange Commission document states.

The company currently has employees at Wessex House on Reid Street. On Monday it held a job fair at the Hamilton Princess Hotel to hire workers to staff its facilities.