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 On 15 December, Northern Rock hired the bank Goldman Sachs to put together a financing package, to assemble backers and present proposals to its board. This package would be available to any potential bidder for the bank. The in-house bid was led by Paul Thompson and Andy Kuipers. The deadline for bids was 4 February 2008, where final bids were expected from Virgin, Olivant and the bank's management; other bidders could still have expressed interest. Goldman Sachs were likely to contact Cerberus and JC Flowers to see if they would like to rejoin the bidding, since the situation had materially