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 King revealed that they had anticipated emergency funding to be in the £20–30bn range. Matt Ridley was forced to resign as chairman in 2007, having been blamed in parliamentary committee hearings for not recognising the risks of the bank's financial strategy and thereby "harming the reputation of the British banking industry". John Devaney and Simon Laffin joined the board in November 2007, when Sir Derek Wanless, Nichola Pease, Adam Fenwick and Rosemary Radcliffe retired as Non-Executive Directors. The Chief Executive Adam Applegarth stayed on in a caretaker role until December 2007. David Baker and Keith Currie left the board, but