TeleBermuda's parent company GlobeNet has successfully raised almost $1,000 million -- the price-tag on its planned undersea cable network.

GlobeNet Communications Group Limited announced yesterday it has completed the $940 million in financing needed for the Atlantica-1 network which will link Bermuda to North and South America.

Telephone or Internet service providers in the Atlantic Ocean Region will subscribe to use the network, making it what the company terms a wholesale "carrier's carrier''.

With financing in place, cable layer Alcatel Submarine Networks is on track to keep to the tight construction schedule.

Its first leg between Brazil and the US should be operating in September next year, and the whole project will be available for service in 2000's fourth quarter.

This will see GlobeNet -- which set up on the Island in 1997 and is traded on the Bermuda Stock Exchange -- become one of the first independent, private cable operators catering to traffic between North and South America.

In April GlobeNet announced low but improving results for its first full year of operation -- with revenue for 1998 at $26.72 million, up from $4.91 million which was achieved between May 1997 and the end of that year.

The bottom line was still in the red with a net loss recorded for 1998 of $4.92 million, slightly better than 1997's $5.29 million.

The $940 million raised in recent months includes $240 million in new privately placed equity, $400 million under a senior credit facility and $300 million in senior notes.