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 and that it would use this to pay off a piece of the Bank of England loan. On 6 February, the Office for National Statistics announced that it was treating Northern Rock as a public corporation, similar to the BBC and Royal Mail for accounting purposes, causing the loans (approximately £25 billion) and guarantees (approximately £30 billion) extended by the Bank of England and the value of the company's mortgage book (approximately £55 billion), provisionally estimated to total around £100 billion, to be added to the National Debt. Although not technically a nationalisation, the decision effectively acknowledged that "In all