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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (36090)	7/14/2003 3:03:36 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

The PPT propped up LTCM?

To: energyplay who wrote (36090)	7/15/2003 3:16:16 AM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

I know that some folks on this thread have posted about dabbling in shares of MIR. Anyone get caught holding at the wrong time? online.wsj.com Lacking Deal With Creditors, Mirant Files for Chapter 11 By JONATHAN FRIEDLAND Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Merchant energy company Mirant Corp. filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in northern Texas, after failing to come to terms with its creditors before a crucial debt-repayment deadline Tuesday. Mirant, based in Atlanta, and 44 subsidiaries, including its flagship Mirant Americas Generation LLC, listed $20.6 billion in assets and $11.4 billion in debt. It also said that as of July 11, it had $1.17 billion in total cash, and had secured commitments, pending court approval, for $500 million in debtor-in-possession financing. Marce Fuller, president and chief executive of Mirant, said in an interview that the company had little choice but to seek bankruptcy protection after its lead agent banks failed to support its restructuring plan. That plan called for bondholders to swap $1.45 billion of unsecured notes maturing in the next three years for secured bonds of equal value maturing in five years. It also called for the restructuring of about $3.5 billion in bank loans coming due through 2006. "We will take a step back and look at our business plan and our financial structure," Ms. Fuller said. "We are not going to stay with the existing [restructuring] plan." The company had indicated that it would file a reorganization plan if it sought bankruptcy protection. But the petition Monday night didn't include such a plan, leaving unclear how creditors and stockholders will be treated. Mirant's stock shot up nearly 15% Monday, or 26 cents, to $2.01 in New York stock Exchange composite trading on rumors that the company had held positive talks with its lenders, including agent banks, Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank and Credit Suisse Group's Credit Suisse First Boston. Other large unsecured creditors listed in the bankruptcy-court petition are State Street Bank & Trust Co., Bear Stearns Co.'s Bear Stearns Securities Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., U.S. Bank National Association and Hypovereinsbank. Some of these institutions hold bonds on behalf of others. The court gave Mirant interim approval to honor all its contracts through the bankruptcy process, a protection that will apply to only those counter-parties that don't terminate trading and marketing arrangements as a result of the Chapter 11 filing. Ms. Fuller said that Mirant has spoken to several of its customers and trading partners and received expressions of support. Mirant is the latest in a string of once high-flying vendors of electric power to be thrown into bankruptcy protection by a sharp contraction in trading volumes and bank credit in the wake of the collapse of the sector's pioneer, Enron Corp. in December 2001. Some of its competitors, including Calpine Corp. Reliant Resources Inc. and AES Corp., have managed to refinance, but only at the cost of pledging most of their assets. Others, including PG&E Corp's National Energy Group unit and NRG, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy Inc., haven't been able to come to terms with lenders and have filed for bankruptcy court protection in recent weeks. Write to Jonathan Friedland at jonathan.friedland@wsj.com Updated July 15, 2003 KJC