Northern Rock chairman quits after crisis

The troubled British mortgage lender Northern Rock says its chairman, Matt Ridley, has resigned. He stepped down after being severely criticised by British lawmakers for the crisis at Northern Rock.

That followed two months of problems during which the mortgage lender was besieged by customers seeking to withdraw their savings and took emergency funding from the Bank of England.

Northern Rock had approached the UK central bank as the lender of last resort for funds to help it through the crisis and is known to have borrowed a total of around 23 billion euros.

Ridley will be succeeded by the former chairman of Standard Chartered bank Bryan Sanderson. Northern Rock’s chief executive Adam Applegarth – for the moment – remains in his job.

Copyright © 2012 euronews