When he purchased MCI for $36 billion of mostly stock, he paid volumes more than BT (British Telecom) had offered.
Part of Bernie's scam was to appear like a prudent spender, while at the same time paying huge additional sums for companies in trouble. He used to be known as the only Nasdaq 100 CEO who would arrive for conferences or parties in a taxi. This, while everyone else arrived in Limos. The guy was just nuts.
He hired one of the men most admired (Scott Sullivan) by Wall Street to cook his books for him. In my own opinion, when they look at the earlier year's books, they will find the entire kingdom was built on fraud and deception.