Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Branson to put £200m of his own money into Northern Rock

Sir Richard Branson is to put £200m (€280m) of his own money into the rescue of Northern Rock as part of the deal he sealed during a weekend telephone call from his private Caribbean island.

The Virgin boss called Alistair Darling, the UK chancellor, hours before a final decision was made by the board of the stricken bank to name Sir Richard’s consortium - which also includes Wilbur Ross, the US distressed-debt investor, the hedge fund Toscafund and First Eastern Investment group - as preferred bidder.

In the call from Necker Island, Sir Richard pledged to put his own reputation on the line plus inject £200m of money from his privately owned Virgin company.

Northern Rock, which owes more than £20bn to the Bank of England, will now accelerate talks with Virgin, which plans to repay £11bn of the loan upfront and the rest in three years.

Rival bidders expressed concern that the government had chosen to press ahead with just Virgin rather than keeping multiple bids on the table.

read the rest published by FT here:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/145eea3c-9c8c-11dc-bcd8-0000779fd2ac.html