Battle lines are fixed in Global asset brawl.

It's going to be messy.

This week, the wrangling begins over Global Crossing Ltd.'s proposal to sell itself out of bankruptcy court for $750 million to two Asian firms. A hearing, set for Wednesday, is likely to be contentious, with creditors objecting to the lowball price being offered by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. of Hong Kong and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Ltd., a unit of government-owned Singapore Technologies. Creditors also object to a $40 million breakup fee Global Crossing agreed to pay the Asians if their bid fails.

With at least two additional bids imminent, creditors are "looking to explore all the options," said a person close to the official creditors' committee, which includes trade creditors and holders of Global Crossing's corporate debt. "There are a bunch of people looking at it and we expect a very robust bidding process."

Among the questions facing creditors is whether to keep Global Crossing together or to liquidate it. Each of three likely bidders -- which include locally based Gores Technology Group and Platinum Equity -- aims to keep Global Crossing's worldwide fiber optic network together while streamlining operations. Keeping a company together usually brings a higher value to creditors than selling off assets.

"There's a pony underneath there," said Lloyd Greif, chief executive of Greif & Co., a Los Angeles investment banking firm. "It's going to take somebody to go in there and carve away at it, but because of the excesses I think there are a lot of opportunities to cut fat."

But some Global creditors want it liquidated as soon as possible, as Global burned through $200 million in its first month under bankruptcy protection. Differences among the various creditor groups are further complicating matters. Here is a rundown of the various interested parties and their goals:

Banks

Global Crossing owes its banks approximately $2.7 billion. Normally, bank debt is secured by assets, and bankers get paid off before other creditors in a bankruptcy. But some of Global Crossing's lenders agreed to secure their loans with stock in Global and its affiliates, which is now worthless. Additionally, a good portion of Global's assets are offshore, making it harder to enforce collection. As a result, banks are likely to get only a fraction of what they are owed, and some have stronger claims than others.

A number of banks have opted for a "go it alone" strategy, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, pushing for liquidation if they feel they can enforce collections, and a restructuring if they can't. Fleet National Bank, a unit of Fleet Boston Financial, owed $77 million, already has filed a motion with the court seeking liquidation of Global Crossing. However, the person close to the creditors' committee said that action doesn't represent the views of all banks, which are led by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. A J.P. Morgan spokesman didn't return a call seeking comment.

Creditors' Committee

Among the constituents of Global Crossing's official creditors' committee, bond investors are owed at least $4 billion, and trade creditors at least $350 million, according to bankruptcy-court filings. Under the Hutchison Whampoa-ST Telemedia bid, they would split $300 million in cash, $800 million in notes and 21 percent stake in the surviving Global Crossing with banks. Common shareholders would receive nothing.

Bondholders are eager for a better bid to be submitted. They are considering all options, including keeping Global Crossing's assets together as a "standalone play," said the person close to the creditors' committee. Trade creditors also hope to see Global continue in some form as a customer.

But herding cats might be easier than finding consensus in this group. As with the banks, bondholders have different rights depending on which Global Crossing bonds they own. The ones issued by Frontier Corp., a Rochester, N.Y., phone company, that Global Crossing purchased and has since sold, have rights to certain former Frontier assets retained by Global.

Bonds issued by Global Crossing have no such backing. "It looks like a liquidation to me," said one local financier who is a major investor in distressed debt and who has a "minor" stake in Global Crossing bonds.

Buyers

To date, three buyers have expressed interest in Global Crossing's assets. Each would keep the core of the company together, although they would certainly look to streamline. The Hutchison-ST Telemedia offer values Global Crossing at $1.7 billion, even though the company listed $22 billion in assets when it declared bankruptcy. (Global Crossing has said it will write down at least $8 billion in assets.)

Hutchison Whampoa and SingTel already are partners in a venture with Global Crossing's 59-percent owned Asian unit, Asia Global Crossing Ltd., and their bid is partly seen as an attempt to protect its earlier investments. The group appears to be most interested in fiber optic lines connecting much of Asia, although Hutchison Whampoa does have interests in Europe, where its chairman, Li Ka-shing, was an early investor in wireless telecommunications.

Global Crossing spokesman John Schmidt declined to say whether the company would support any of the other potential offers. "As part of the proceedings we will look at all prospective offers, but I don't think we would be in a position to comment on any specific one," he said.

The Asian bid is clouded by ties between Winnick and K1 Ventures, an investment arm of Singapore's Keppel Corp., the company that also owns ST Telemedia. Winnick resigned from the board of K1 after the ties were disclosed by The New York Times.

Locally based investors Gores Technology and Platinum Equity are the most likely other bidders for Global Crossing. The rival firms are run by brothers Alec and Tom Gores, who have each become rich buying and turning around distressed technology divisions of large companies. The Gores brothers have competed on deals at least twice before, for Mattel Inc.'s Learning Co. division and Hewlett-Packard's VeriFone Inc. unit. Each of those prizes was won by Alec Gores, 48, who runs Gores Technology.

"We've both done pretty well," said Tom Gores, 37. "At the end of the day, we were happy with what happened (with Learning Co.). He got the deal, we weren't willing to pay the price, frankly. You can't get too emotional about these things."

Alec Gores sold Learning Co. to Riverdeep Interactive Learning last year for $40 million in stock and $20 million in assumed debt. He did not return calls seeking comment. Sources close to Global Crossing said Gores Technology has signed a confidentiality agreement and is in the process of putting together a bid.

Where Alec Gores is a classic turnaround artist, seeking a quick sale and exit and often allowing the seller to participate in the profits, Tom Gores is more of a buy-and-hold investor. He founded Platinum Equity in 1995, after leaving his older brother's firm, and has kept the majority of the 37 companies he's purchased since then.

Platinum Equity would likely merge Global Crossing into a worldwide network-services operation, called NextiraOne, that Tom Gores cobbled together with several large acquisitions.