Southern Co. Chairman Allen Franklin announced Monday the selection of C. Philip Saunders as President and CEO of the newly formed Southern Co. Gas, which will spearhead the acquisition of the Georgia customers currently being served by The New Power Co., ensuring a smooth transition for those customers to Southern Co. Gas.

On June 19, Southern Co. signed an asset purchase agreement with New Power Holdings to acquire the company’s approximately 210,000 customers in Georgia. That agreement was recently approved by the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which is reviewing New Power’s recent Chapter 11 reorganization filing.

Saunders, 50, most recently served as senior vice president of Southern Co. Services and chief information officer for Southern Co. Prior to that, he was chief commercial officer of Mirant Europe, where he was responsible for Mirant’s energy trading operations in Amsterdam. Southern Co. spun off its Mirant subsidiary in April 2001.

Saunders also provided executive direction for the competitive natural gas business at South Western Electricity in Bristol, England (also formerly owned by Southern Co.). He has extensive management experience in power marketing, engineering, planning and systems analysis.

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