D-day for Northern Rock survival bid

Today is the final date for bidders to put forward rescue proposals for beleaguered British mortgage lender Northern Rock.

Northern Rock’s advisers, Blackstone, Citi and Merrill Lynch have reportedly sought to drum up would-be buyers from as far afield as China in an effort to salvage the UK’s first casualty of the worldwide credit crunch.

Reports have even suggested that the Government could “nationalise” the lender – taking over and breaking up the business in a bid to recoup taxpayers’ cash.

This extreme option aside, only four teams have so far expressed public interest in the lender.

The Newcastle-based group was at the centre of a financial storm in September after soaring borrowing costs forced the bank into a funding bail-out from the Bank of England.

However, the lender’s shareholders are unlikely to gain any respite from the rescue due to the £20 billion-plus (€28bn) debt burden racked up so far by the business. Shares in the company were trading at record lows yesterday as hopes of a return for investors waned.

The UK’s fifth-largest mortgage lender’s stock market value has now slumped to little more than a tenth of the £5.2bn (€7.27bn) it was worth in February.

Such is the sensitivity over the future of the company that it gained an injunction against two newspapers this week when a confidential sales document was leaked.

The deadline for proposals is today, although a Northern Rock spokeswoman said it will make an announcement when there is “greater clarity” over the future of the business.

A sale of the whole company is considered extremely unlikely. Lloyds TSB looked at a potential deal before the crisis emerged in September, but pulled out because the Bank of England refused to support the deal with billions of pounds in loans.

Other options said to be under consideration include the sale of its mortgage assets to a willing buyer – leaving shareholders with a rump company saddled with the Bank of England debts.

By 2010, Northern Rock may still owe the Bank of England almost £6bn (€8.5bn), according to reports.

Whoever succeeds faces an uphill task after the lender’s reputation – like its high-risk borrowing strategy – was shattered as panicking savers queued in the first run on a UK bank in nearly 150 years.

The four teams that have expressed an interest in the lender are: New York-based private equity firm JC Flowers; Richard Branson’s Virgin Money; Cerberus, another US private equity firm; and Olivant, an investment group headed by former Abbey chief executive and City heavyweight Luqman Arnold.