Nationalisation of Northern Rock In October 2008 the chairman Ron Sandler noted that there had been informal talks concerning the idea of the merger with the government, but there had been no subsequent discussion. Sandler did however add "It would not surprise me at some point if a closer look was taken at the method of managing loan books within government-owned banks". In March 2009 Alistair Darling said that he was keeping his options open during the "fast-moving" crisis in the banking industry, and thus not ruling out the possibility of a mortgage book merger between Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. On 24
Nationalisation of Northern Rock vast improvement on the previous year's losses of £1.36 billion. Due to the year's performance staff were awarded a total of £13.4 million in bonuses. Chief Executive Gary Hoffman waived his bonus payout of £700,000. As a part of the restructuring the Guernsey business was shut down on 2 September 2010. Customers of the Guernsey business were given three months notice. The €650 million worth of Irish deposits were sold to Permanent TSB in 2011. On 23 July 2012 it was announced that Virgin would be acquiring £465 million worth of mortgage assets from Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc. In