Deals
Virgin to Buy U.K.’s Northern Rock for 747 Million Pounds
This article is for subscribers only.
Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Money Holdings U.K. Ltd. is to buy Northern Rock Plc for 747 million pounds ($1.2 billion), marking the first sale of a British government bank holding since the 2008 financial crisis.
The government will also receive 50 million pounds in cash within six months, 150 million pounds of Tier 1 capital notes and as much as a further 80 million pounds in cash in the next five years subject to a profitable initial public offering, U.K. Financial Investments, which manages the government’s stake, said in a statement today. That would bring the total to as much as 1.03 billion pounds, nearly 400 million pounds less than the sum invested by the government.