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Former Northern Rock boss 'cashes in'

The former boss of collapsed bank Northern Rock, was given a £750,000 pay-off when leaving the firm, the Observer reports.

Adam Applegarth can also respect retirement dividends of £200,000 per year thanks to his years of service at the loans lender - which had to be taken over by the government when it fell victim to the credit crunch last year.

As a result of this nationalisation, the bank's liabilities were taken over by the taxpayer - and it currently owes around £25 billion.

Shareholders were also left considerably out of pocket by the deal.

Northern Rock's high-risk growth plan prior to its collapse, cleared by Mr Applegarth, left it vulnerable to the crunch - as it relied on raising funds on the money markets rather than through customer deposits.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat finance spokesman Vince Cable said: "[It is] outrageous that someone who brought the bank to the brink of destruction and subjected taxpayers to liabilities worth billions of pounds should be rewarded for failure."

He added: "It doesn't look good that the government appears to be sanctioning pay-outs of this size to someone who played a big role in the bank's demise."

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