Mirant Suspends Program to Return Cash to Stockholders after Returning $3.856 Billion

PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mirant (NYSE:MIR) announced today that it has suspended its program of returning cash to its stockholders after purchasing approximately 110 million of its shares since November 2007 for $3.856 billion. The company now has 156 million basic shares outstanding, having repurchased approximately 43% of its basic outstanding shares over the past 11 months.

In November 2007, when the Company announced that it would return $4.6 billion of cash to its owners, it stated that it was sizing the amount based on four factors: (1) the outlook for the business, (2) preserving the company's credit profile, (3) maintaining adequate liquidity, including for capital expenditures and (4) maintaining sufficient working capital.

"We have continued to evaluate those four factors as we have returned cash," said Edward R. Muller, chairman and chief executive officer of Mirant. "Although we continue to be optimistic about the value of the company and the company has no liquidity issues, our analysis of those four factors under current market conditions has led us to conclude that we should suspend our program of returning cash. A significant consideration in our evaluation is that we recently submitted proposals for new generating plants at our facilities in Northern California in response to a request for offers from Pacific Gas & Electric. If our proposals are accepted, we want to ensure that we have funds for the required capital expenditures, and for other requirements of the business, even if turmoil in the credit markets continues and commodity prices are depressed."

Mirant will continue to evaluate its need for cash using the same four factors.

Mirant is a competitive energy company that produces and sells electricity in the United States. Mirant owns or leases approximately 10,097 megawatts of electric generating capacity. The company operates an asset management and energy marketing organization from its headquarters in Atlanta. For more information, please visit www.mirant.com

Cautionary Language Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the statements included herein involve forward-looking information. Mirant cautions that these statements involve known and unknown risks and that there can be no assurance that such results will occur. There are various important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, such as, but not limited to, legislative and regulatory initiatives regarding deregulation, regulation or restructuring of the industry of generating, transmitting and distributing electricity (the "electricity industry"); changes in state, federal and other regulations affecting the electricity industry (including rate and other regulations); changes in, or changes in the application of, environmental and other laws and regulations to which Mirant and its subsidiaries and affiliates are or could become subject; the failure of Mirant's plants to perform as expected, including outages for unscheduled maintenance or repair; changes in market conditions, including developments in the supply, demand, volume and pricing of electricity and other commodities in the energy markets; changes in the credit standards of market participants or the extent and timing of the entry of additional competition in Mirant's markets or those of its subsidiaries and affiliates; increased margin requirements, market volatility or other market conditions that could increase Mirant's obligations to post collateral beyond amounts that are expected; Mirant's inability to access effectively the over-the-counter and exchange-based commodity markets or changes in commodity market liquidity or other commodity market conditions, which may affect Mirant's ability to engage in asset management and proprietary trading activities as expected, or result in material extraordinary gains or losses from open positions in fuel oil or other commodities; deterioration in the financial condition of Mirant's counterparties and the resulting failure to pay amounts owed to Mirant or to perform obligations due to Mirant beyond collateral posted; hazards customary to the power generation industry and the possibility that Mirant may not have adequate insurance to cover losses as a result of such hazards; price mitigation strategies employed by ISOs or RTOs that reduce Mirant's revenue and may result in a failure to compensate Mirant's generation units adequately for all their costs; changes in the rules used to calculate capacity and energy payments; legal and political challenges to the rules used to calculate capacity payments in the markets in which we operate; volatility in Mirant's gross margin as a result of Mirant's accounting for derivative financial instruments used in its asset management activities and volatility in its cash flow from operations resulting from working capital requirements, including collateral, to support its asset management and proprietary trading activities; Mirant's inability to enter into intermediate and long-term contracts to sell power and procure fuel, including its transportation, on terms and prices acceptable to it; the inability of Mirant's operating subsidiaries to generate sufficient cash flow to support its operations; Mirant's ability to borrow additional funds and access capital markets; strikes, union activity or labor unrest; weather and other natural phenomena, including hurricanes and earthquakes; the cost and availability of emissions allowances; Mirant's ability to obtain adequate supply and delivery of fuel for its facilities; curtailment of operations due to transmission constraints; environmental regulations that restrict Mirant's ability or render it uneconomic to operate its business, including regulations related to the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases; Mirant's inability to complete construction of emissions reduction equipment by January 2010 to meet the requirements of the Maryland Healthy Air Act, which may result in reduced unit operations and reduced cash flows and revenues from operations; war, terrorist activities or the occurrence of a catastrophic loss; Mirant's consolidated indebtedness and the possibility that Mirant or its subsidiaries may incur additional indebtedness in the future; restrictions on the ability of Mirant's subsidiaries to pay dividends, make distributions or otherwise transfer funds to Mirant, including restrictions on Mirant North America contained in its financing agreements and restrictions on Mirant Mid-Atlantic contained in its leveraged lease documents, which may affect Mirant's ability to access the cash flow of those subsidiaries to make debt service and other payments; Pacific Gas & Electric rejecting Mirant's proposals for new generating plants at Mirant's facilities in Northern California; and the disposition of the pending litigation described in Mirant's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mirant undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise. The foregoing review of factors that could cause Mirant's actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking statements included in this news release should be considered in connection with information regarding risks and uncertainties that may affect Mirant's future results included in Mirant's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov .

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