Nationalisation of Northern Rock in financial services. The OFT concluded that "public support for Northern Rock did not, during that period, have a significantly adverse impact on competition." In February 2008, Ron Sandler was appointed Executive Chairman by the government. Bryan Sanderson, Sir Ian Gibson, David Jones and Paul Thompson resigned from the board at this time. Gary Hoffman became Chief Executive of Northern Rock in October 2008. He has previously been the vice chairman of Barclays and a former Managing Director of Barclaycard. With the appointment of Gary Hoffman, Ron Sandler changed to a Non-Executive Chairman position. On 4 November 2010 Hoffman left
Northern Rock 2008, as an alternative to insolvency. By that point the government had extended liquidity support of tens of billions of pounds to Northern Rock. An inquiry concluded that the board had failed to properly protect the bank from the risks inherent in its strategy, or to restrain the executive directors where required, therefore although the bank had sufficient assets, it had become vulnerable. The branch operations were eventually returned to private ownership when the branches and other retail operations were acquired by Virgin Group in 2012, being rebranded as Virgin Money the same year. The mortgage book of higher risk