Northern Rock Sold To Virgin

Taking a short respite from international news of doom and gloom (bond yields in Spain at 7%, Germany and France fall out over role of ECB etc) it has been announced that Virgin will buy Northern Rock plc (the non toxic part of Northern Rock) for around öa3750M now, with a possible further öa3280M over the next few years.

Northern Rock plc will be rebranded as Virgin Money, which has promised not to make anyone compulsorily redundant over the next 3 years.

Taxpayers have put around öa31.4BN into Northern Rock plc. Hence the loss is between öa3400M to öa3650M.

The "bad bank" part of Northern Rock is estimated to contain losses of up to öa321BN.