If you’ve ever pondered just how it could happen – the first run on a British Bank since 1866 and the amazing Northern Rock debacle we’ve all witnessed over the past few months then there’s a clue lurking in the CV (or lack of it) of the Chief Executive, Adam Applegarth.
I raised a wry smile when the Telegraph revealed today that Adam Applegarth didn’t have even a crumb of a banking qualification to his name. Still, he never let that hold him back as he became the second-youngest CEO of a FTSE 100 company and started to wheel and deal his way to a fortune that included his 2007 family aquisition of a Northumberland mansion after he’d made £2.6 million to help him aquire it with, by… your guessed it, selling his own shares in Northern Rock.
Talk about insider trading – within a few short months those same shares were worthless and I heard this morning on the BBC Today program that shareholders may get offered 25 pence per share from a kindly Mr. Branson and Virgin money poised (almost vulture like) if they get the go ahead to take over.
Some people know no shame do they! How can Applegarth sleep at night? Seems like the Barons of Northern England still rule over serfdom in much the same way they’ve always done.
