Concert, the Bermuda based joint venture operation between AT&T and British Telecom (BT). Concert is reported as losing around $80 million a year and both parent companies are seeking a solution.

Concert, a $7 billion venture, has 60 staff in its Hamilton office, who indicated to The Royal Gazette reporter they are anxious to know what their future holds. No one would comment publicly on the situation, and directed inquiries to AT&T offices in America.

Phone calls to AT&T did not garner a response about Concert's future, except for confirmation that something would happen to the company.

Concert's advent was announced in Bermuda in February 2000 and officially opened up for business, with a great fanfare, in May last year. It is a global communication operation with an emphasis on serving multi-national corporations, international carriers and Internet providers.

The company placed two of its business units in Bermuda -- international carrier services (ICS) and network and systems(N&S).

ICS is responsible for carrying all of AT&T's and BT's international traffic and relationships with foreign telephone companies and provides wholesale communications services to telecom companies and Internet service providers worldwide.

N&S owns and manages Concert's existing international network which reaches 237 countries and territories. The managed networks have 6,000 nodes in 52 countries worldwide.

Concert also has staff working in the US, Hong Kong, Japan, London and South America.

Last week BT's results recorded its first quarterly loss, $4 billion, in its 17 years existence. Part of this was put down to $80 million of bad debts incurred by Concert, due to bankruptcies among its customers. BT announced radical restructuring plans for the whole group.

As part of this necessary restructuring and way back to profit BT has come up with suggestions for the future of Concert. One of these is to sell off BT's stake in Concert, an idea currently being discussed with AT&T which could be a potential purchaser.

Another idea put forward, and being discussed with AT&T, is to hive off Concert and some other parts of the group such as BT Ignite -- which lost around $550 million last year -- and form them into a separately listed global telecom company.

Although both businesses are heavy loss makers analysts say a combined new company could be valued at around $7 billion.

A BT spokesman said this week that these are only two of the options under consideration with regard to Concert, and that no decision has yet been reached.

A spokesperson for AT&T told the Royal Gazette: "BT last week laid out a range of options (for Concert).

"A buy out is one of them but there is no indication as to when a decision will be made. AT&T has an aim of improving the performance of Concert but we have not put a timetable to this.'' Expectant: Staffers at telecommunications company Concert -- initially heralded as a potential major job producer -- yesterday went about their business as they await news about the company's future.