News

09/18/2008

Radian Implements Mortgage Insurance Capital Plan

* Internal Restructuring Provides Mortgage Insurance Business with Significant

                        Additional Statutory Surplus *

                      * Sherman Stake Increases to 29% *

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Radian Group Inc. (NYSE: RDN), today announced the completion of the primary component of its capital plan, providing non-dilutive capital support to its mortgage insurance business. Radian has contributed its ownership interest in Radian Asset Assurance Inc. (Radian Asset), its principal financial guaranty subsidiary, to Radian Guaranty, the Company's principal mortgage insurance subsidiary.

"We reiterate our commitment to our mortgage insurance business with the contribution of a company with $960 million in statutory surplus, which is part of approximately $3 billion of claims-paying resources," stated S.A. Ibrahim, Chief Executive Officer of Radian Group. "Our mortgage insurance business remains our primary focus and we believe the contribution of Radian Asset will provide a substantial amount of capital over time. The strength of this internally-sourced capital plan differentiates us within the industry and best positions us for the long term."

Radian's ownership interest in Sherman Financial recently increased to approximately 29 percent from 22 percent. Radian expects Sherman to continue to provide it with a meaningful dividend contribution and to serve as a potential source of additional capital. Radian received $19.5 million in dividends from Sherman in the first half of 2008.

To allow for this transfer, Radian completed the previously announced amendment to its credit facility, reducing the outstanding amount and commitment size of the facility to $150 million.

About Radian

Radian Group Inc. is a global credit risk management company headquartered in Philadelphia with significant operations in New York and London. Radian develops innovative financial solutions by applying its core mortgage credit risk expertise and structured finance capabilities to the credit enhancement needs of the capital markets worldwide, primarily through credit insurance products. The company also provides credit enhancement for public finance and other corporate and consumer assets on both a direct and reinsurance basis and holds strategic interests in credit-based consumer asset businesses. Additional information may be found at www.radian.com.

Forward Looking Statements

All statements made in this news release that address events, developments or results that we expect or anticipate may occur in the future are "forward- looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are made on the basis of management's current views and assumptions with respect to future events. Any forward-looking statement is not a guarantee of future performance and actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements, as well as our prospects as a whole, are subject to risks and uncertainties, including the following:

-- changes in general financial and political conditions, such as extended national or regional economic recessions, changes in housing demand or mortgage originations, changes in housing values (in particular, further deterioration in the housing, mortgage and related credit markets, which would harm our future consolidated results of operations and could cause losses for our businesses to be worse than expected), changes in the liquidity in the capital markets and the further contraction of credit markets, population trends and changes in household formation patterns, changes in unemployment rates, changes or volatility in interest rates or consumer confidence, changes in credit spreads, changes in the way investors perceive the strength of private mortgage insurers or financial guaranty providers, investor concern over the credit quality and specific risks faced by the particular businesses, municipalities or pools of assets covered by our insurance;

-- economic changes or catastrophic events in geographic regions where our mortgage insurance or financial guaranty insurance in force is more concentrated;

-- our ability to successfully obtain additional capital, if necessary, to support our long-term liquidity needs and to protect or enhance our credit ratings and the financial strength ratings of Radian Guaranty Inc., our primary mortgage insurance subsidiary;

-- a decrease in the volume of home mortgage originations due to reduced liquidity in the lending market, tighter underwriting standards and a deterioration in housing markets throughout the U.S.;

-- our ability to maintain adequate risk-to-capital ratios, leverage ratios and surplus requirements in our mortgage insurance business in light of on-going losses in this business;

-- a decrease in the volume of municipal bonds, and other public finance and structured finance transactions that we insure, or a decrease in the volume of such transactions for which issuers or investors seek or demand financial guaranty insurance;

-- the loss of a customer for whom we write a significant amount of mortgage insurance or financial guaranty insurance or the influence of large customers;

-- reduction in the volume of reinsurance business available to us from one or more of our primary financial guaranty insurer customers due to adverse changes in their ability to generate new profitable direct financial guaranty insurance or their need for us to reinsure their risk;

-- disruption in the servicing of mortgages covered by our insurance policies;

-- the aging of our mortgage insurance portfolio and changes in severity or frequency of losses associated with certain of our products that are riskier than traditional mortgage insurance or financial guaranty insurance policies;

-- the performance of our insured portfolio of higher risk loans, such as Alternative-A ("Alt-A") and subprime loans, and adjustable rate products, such as adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages, which have resulted in increased losses in 2007 and 2008 and may result in further losses;

-- reduced opportunities for loss mitigation in markets where housing values fail to appreciate or begin to decline;

-- changes in persistency rates of our mortgage insurance policies caused by changes in refinancing activity, in the rate of appreciation or depreciation of home values and changes in the mortgage insurance cancellation requirements of mortgage lenders and investors;

-- recapture of reinsurance business by the primary insurers under our financial guaranty reinsurance arrangements, which would reduce written and earned premiums in our financial guaranty business and correspondingly reduce the amount of capital required to be held against this risk;

-- downgrades or threatened downgrades of, or other ratings actions with respect to, our credit ratings or the insurance financial strength ratings assigned by the major rating agencies to any of our rated insurance subsidiaries at any time;

-- heightened competition for our mortgage insurance business from others such as the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans' Administration or other private mortgage insurers (in particular those that have been assigned higher ratings from the major ratings agencies);

-- changes in the charters of Freddie Mac and/or Fannie Mae, the largest purchasers of mortgage loans that we insure;

-- changes in the business practices of Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac, including our ability to retain our "Top Tier" eligibility requirement from both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae;

-- the application of existing federal or state consumer, lending, insurance, securities and other applicable laws and regulations, or changes in these laws and regulations or the way they are interpreted; including, without limitation: (i) the possibility of private lawsuits or formal investigations by state insurance departments and state attorneys general alleging that services offered by the mortgage insurance industry, such as captive reinsurance, pool insurance and contract underwriting, are violative of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and/or similar state regulations, (ii) legislative and regulatory changes affecting demand for private mortgage insurance or financial guaranty insurance, or (iii) legislation and regulatory changes limiting or restricting our use of (or requirements for) additional capital, the products we may offer, the form in which we may execute the credit protection we provide or the aggregate notional amount of any product we may offer for any one transaction or in the aggregate;

-- the possibility that we may fail to estimate accurately the likelihood, magnitude and timing of losses in connection with establishing loss reserves for our mortgage insurance or financial guaranty businesses, or the premium deficiency for our first- and second-lien mortgage insurance business, or to estimate accurately the fair value amounts of derivative contracts in our mortgage insurance and financial guaranty businesses in determining gains and losses on these contracts;

-- volatility in our earnings caused by changes in the fair value of our derivative instruments and our need to reevaluate the premium deficiencies in our mortgage insurance business on a quarterly basis;

-- changes in accounting guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") or the Financial Accounting Standards Board;

-- legal and other limitations on amounts we may receive from our subsidiaries as dividends or through tax and expense sharing arrangements with our subsidiaries; and

-- vulnerability to the performance of our strategic investments, including in particular, our investment in Sherman Financial Group LLC.

For more information regarding these risks and uncertainties as well as certain additional risks that we face, you should refer to the Risk Factors detailed in Item 1A of Part I of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007 as well as the material changes to these risks discussed in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are current only as of the date on which we issued this news release. We do not intend to, and we disclaim any duty or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements made in this release to reflect new information or future events or for any other reason.

SOURCE Radian Group Inc.

CONTACT: Investors, Terri Williams-Perry, +1-215-231-1486, terri.williams-perry@radian.com; or Media, Rick Gillespie, +1-215-231-1061, rick.gillespie@radian.com