Northern Rock and Banking Reform

With regard to the executives, I have mentioned that the business strategy was reckless. The non-executives gave the chief executive, Adam Applegarth, his head, and no company should aspire to that model. The other aspect of what went wrong with Northern Rock was that it relied on the wholesale markets—in other words, it drank from one well, which was a reckless business strategy. The non-executives should have been asking questions such as, ““Why are we doing so well?”” In the first six months of 2007, Northern Rock was responsible for 19 per cent. of all new mortgage lending. Both the execs and the non-execs did not address basic questions.