Local people back stricken lender

Like thousands of savers across the United Kingdom, Linda Marshall arrived at a branch of Northern Rock Plc first thing yesterday morning. She wasn't taking money out, she was putting more in.

"They've done a lot for this city. They're part of the city and I think people should show some solidarity," said Marshall, 52, a home healthcare worker in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne who has her life savings at the bank. "I've been with Northern Rock since I was 17 years old and I've always been very happy with them."

While Northern Rock customers across the UK line up to withdraw their cash, people in northeast England are supporting a bank whose roots in the region date back to 1850. Northern Rock is the northeast's largest financial institution, and many locals say their fate is bound up with that of the bank.

Some 4,300 people work at the lender's headquarters in the Newcastle suburb of Gosforth. Northern Rock has donated 175 million pounds to charitable causes across the northeast in the past decade, channeling 5 percent of its pretax profit to the Northern Rock Foundation.

Savers across the UK have removed about 2 billion pounds from Northern Rock since September 14, according to estimates by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. The bank's shares have tumbled 67 percent since the mortgage lender was bailed out by the Bank of England last week because soaring credit costs left it unable to make new loans.

A local newspaper, the Newcastle Journal, on Monday urged readers to open more savings accounts and put as much as 2,000 pounds each into the bank to improve its cash flow. The money will be "safe as the Bank of England", the paper said.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 09/19/2007 page15)