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The fall of Britain's Northern Rock bank may be the first dropped shoe in a chorus line of big banks tap-dancing into oblivion. The British government's move yesterday to nationalize the insolvent mortgage lender's remaining operations leaves shareholders holding an empty bag. Their only resort now will be to call their lawyers. What we may be witnessing, in a movement that will surely spread to the US, is a changing of the guard at the top of the financial food-chain between bankers and lawyers. Shoes may have begun to drop in the US last week with Citigroup halting redemptions for...

The cost of the Northern Rock crisis has reached the equivalent of £3,500 for every taxpayer as experts warned that the nationalisation rescue of the bank was bound to fail. * Leader: Labour's Rock problems are just beginning * Rachel Sylvester: Darling won't walk the plank alone Taxpayers' exposure to the beleaguered bank has doubled since the beginning of the year and now stands at about £110 billion - more than the annual budget of the NHS and the equivalent of 27p on the basic rate of income tax. Ron Sandler, Northern Rock's new chairman, admitted that the bank may...

Visibly concerned to avoid queues forming outside branches this morning, the chancellor and Ron Sandler, Northern Rock's new executive chairman, insisted it would be "business as usual". Mr Sandler, who is to be paid £90,000 a month in his new role, insisted branches would open on time, customers would be able to withdraw and deposit money, and the government guarantees to depositors remained in place. News of an emergency loan to Northern Rock from the Bank of England last September triggered the first run on a British bank in more than a century. The government has been trying since then...

LONDON — The British government announced Sunday that it would bring Northern Rock, the struggling mortgage lender, under its control. It was the first nationalization of a bank in more than a decade and a huge blow for the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The government rejected two takeover proposals for the lender, which ran into trouble last year because of a funding shortage that followed the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States. The government was forced to shore up the company with about £55 billion, or $107 billion, in loans and guarantees. “The government has completed its...

This week, thousands of anxious Britons spent days queuing in front of bank branches to withdraw their savings from Northern Rock, a British mortgage lender caught up in a credit crunch. Many emptied their accounts, even after British Chancellor Alistair Darling announced that the government would guarantee existing savings accounts in an attempt to stop the panic. Whom did movers in U.K. financial circles blame for the bank panic? They blamed Northern Rock for high-risk investment practices. They blamed Darling for letting the situation deteriorate to the extent that it did. Then they blamed Darling for promising that the government...

Northern Rock: Gordon Brown's big gamble By Gordon Rayner and Andrew Porter Last Updated: 6:51am BST 18/09/2007 Gordon Brown put his political credibility on the line yesterday by taking the unprecedented step of guaranteeing all savings in Northern Rock accounts. With every previous attempt to reassure the bank’s customers ending in failure, the Prime Minister took the gamble of putting up £21billion of taxpayers’ money to halt the panic withdrawals. The Government was forced to act after Northern Rock branches were besieged for a third day by thousands of customers queueing all day to empty their accounts. By the end...