Red Hat Announces $300 Million Stock Repurchase Program

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the repurchase of up to $300 million of Red Hat’s common stock from time to time on the open market or in privately negotiated transactions.

“We have repurchased over 5.8 million shares of Red Hat common stock under the current program, equivalent to 3% of our shares outstanding as of February 29, 2012”

The new program begins April 1, 2012, replacing the current repurchase program that will expire on March 31, 2012. To date, approximately $214 million has been used to repurchase shares under the current program.

“We have repurchased over 5.8 million shares of Red Hat common stock under the current program, equivalent to 3% of our shares outstanding as of February 29, 2012,” stated Charlie Peters, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Red Hat. “Our management team and Board of Directors have a strong conviction in our long-term growth prospects and our ability to generate cash flow. We believe that stock repurchases are an excellent means to return value to our shareholders.”

The timing and the amount of any repurchases of common stock will be determined by Red Hat management based on its evaluation of market conditions and other factors. Repurchases of common stock may be made under a Rule 10b5-1 plan, which would permit common stock to be repurchased when Red Hat might otherwise be precluded from doing so under insider trading laws. The repurchase program may be suspended or discontinued at any time.

The repurchase program will be funded using Red Hat's working capital. As of February 29, 2012, Red Hat had cash and investments of approximately $1.3 billion.

Red Hat had approximately 192.7 million shares of common stock outstanding as of February 29, 2012.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and an S&P 500 company, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with more than 70 offices spanning the globe. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with cloud, virtualization, management, storage and service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

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