Nationalisation of Northern Rock in the event that the takeover bids fail. On 12 January 2008, the Treasury recruited Ron Sandler, the former Lloyd's of London Chief Executive, to lead Northern Rock, in the event that the bank was nationalised. If the Bank was to be temporarily nationalised, the government would manage the Bank at "arm's length" on a commercial basis, where services for savers and borrowers would not be affected and the company would continue to operate as normal. However nationalisation would also address the future of the Northern Rock Foundation. Alistair Darling rejected the possibility of the Bank being put into administration.
Nationalisation of Northern Rock chief executive David Baker £504,000 for misreporting mortgage arrears data and former credit director Richard Barclay was fined £140,000 for failing to ensure accurate financial information. In April finance director David Jones quit the bank after reports that the FSA were to further investigate the activities at the bank prior to the nationalisation. In July Jones was fined and banned by the FSA. It has subsequently become known that the best book of Northern Rock's mortgage business, comprising mortgages worth £47 billion – some 40% of the company's assets – had been transferred to a Channel Islands based company called