Northern Rock chief’s future at bank in doubt
Oct 30 2010 by Iain Laing, The Journal
NORTHERN Rock last night refused to comment on speculation that its chief executive may be about to hand in his resignation.
Gary Hoffman took on one of the UK banking industry’s toughest jobs two years ago and successfully turned around the publicly-owned Newcastle bank.
Now there is speculation that he is in the frame for another challenging role as chief executive of NBNK Investments, a new company launched to acquire bank assets owned by the Government.
He is rumoured to have signalled his intention to resign from Northern Rock to boardroom colleagues although he has not handed in his notice yet.
The bank would only say last night that he remains chief executive of the company and that it refused to comment on speculation.
Hoffman has garnered praise for leading the recovery of the Rock and for overseeing its separation into two separate businesses. His experience managing a state-owned bank undergoing a radical restructure would qualify him well for a new venture launched to bring fresh competition into the high street banking sector.
He now runs the so-called “good bank” Northern Rock plc, which manages about £19bn in savings and £10bn of mortgages, after this month giving up running the “bad bank” Northern Rock Asset Management, which has been left with the majority of the lender’s loan book.
