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 buyers. Alistair Darling has stated that he is in no hurry to return the bank back to the private sector. In January 2010 National Australia Bank were widely reported to have lined up potential advisers on the deal to buy the Northern Rock. NAB already own two brands in the UK, Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks. Also in January 2010 Virgin purchased a small bank, the Church House Trust, but according to "the Times" and other sources Virgin still had an interest in Northern Rock and had been contacting companies such as Blackstone. In July 2010 it was reported that a