WorldCom gets court nod on $2bn funding

The bankruptcy does not include its international operations. The Clinton, Mississippi-based company, which transmits half of the world’s Internet traffic, plans to hire a restructuring expert to aid its current management team.

It aims to emerge intact from Chapter 11 in about nine to 12 months with less than a quarter of its $30 billion debt load.

“The reorganisation here is not going to be a liquidation,”WorldCom chief executive John Sidgmore said at a press conference in New York. “I think our plan is going to be to keep the company intact.”

President George W. Bush said he was “very concerned” about the impact of WorldCom’s bankruptcy on workers, investors, and the economy, and urged Congress to crack down on unethical corporate conduct, a White House spokesman said on Monday.

On Wall Street, the blue-chip Dow average fell below 8,000for the first time since mid-October 1998, pushed lower by an 11 percent decline in Citigroup Inc., which was among the leading lenders to WorldCom and collapsed energy trader Enron Corp.