Northern Rock 2008, Ron Sandler was appointed Executive Chairman by the government. Gary Hoffman became Chief Executive of Northern Rock in October 2008. With the appointment of Gary Hoffman, Ron Sandler changed to a Non-Executive Chairman position. Since the split of the bank into Northern Rock plc and Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc on 1 January 2010, each company had its boards of directors. On 4 November 2010 Northern Rock announced that Gary Hoffman had left the bank and was to move to NBNK Investments as CEO. One of the stipulations of Hoffman's appointment at NBNK was that they could not table
Nationalisation of Northern Rock opened following the news, many customers queued outside branches to withdraw their savings (a run on the bank). This bank run was not the traditional form, where depositors withdraw money in a snowball effect, leading to a liquidity crisis; instead, it occurred in the aftermath of the liquidity crisis. It was estimated that £1 billion was withdrawn by customers that day, about 5% of the total bank deposits held by Northern Rock. In one incident, police were called to the branch in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, when two joint account holders barricaded the bank manager in her office after she refused to