Rock House Method

Chancellor set to announce Northern Rock privatisation

The chancellor will announce tonight that the bank whose collapse marked the start of the great crash of 2007-8 is to be privatised.

Northern Rock is to be auctioned, with an expectation that the sale could raise around £1bn.

In his Mansion House address to bankers in the City of London, George Osborne will also announce that he has responded to pressure from the Treasury Select Committee and from the Independent Commission on Banking for the promotion of competition in the banking industry to be a primary duty of the new Financial Conduct Authority, which will take on the consumer protection functions of the Financial Services Authority.

His main theme however will be what he calls "the British dilemma", which is how to reform and make safe the banking industry, without undermining its ability to generate wealth for the UK.

Central to his solution, as I revealed last night , is his decision to force the giant universal banks - Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC - to insulate or ring-fence their retail activities from their more speculative investment banking, with the aim of reducing the potential cost to taxpayers and the economy of future banking crises.

He will reveal new statistics showing how important it is to minimise the potential of big banks to wreck the economy. Mr Osborne will say that in the year and a half since the end of the recession, the output of the UK's financial sector has continued to contract by 4%.

Or to put it another way, as he will, the economy would have grown at roughly its long-term trend rate since the recession, instead of limping along, if it hadn't been for the continued shrinkage in the banking and financial sector.

On the method for privatising the Rock, Mr Osborne has decided to offer the whole of the Rock for sale, rather than floating it on the stock market or responding to pressure from some MPs for it to be mutualised and turned into a building society.

He is following the recommendation of UK Financial Investments, which manages the Treasury's stakes in banks, and also of UKFI's adviser Deutsche Bank, of what is best for taxpayers.

That said, the Treasury believes that the Rock could become part of another building society, because it expects to receive bids from Yorkshire Building Society and from Coventry Building Society.

Other possible bidders include Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Money and NBNK, the company set up last year to buy banks - although both Virgin and NBNK are more interested in buying Verde, the much bigger banking business that Lloyds is being forced to sell.

The Rock House Blog: Stage Gear's Latest Microphones

“These are an excellent addition to our growing Stage Gear line products,” says SLM CEO Mark Ragin. “We understand that quality, entry-level products are important, and we’re hoping musicians and retailers take to them.” He adds that the company will continue to build on St. Louis Music as a brand, and that these mics are just another of the long line of house brands being developed.

Proceedings of annual meeting

Engineering and mining journal

Chemical engineering

Old-House Journal

Metallurgical & chemical engineering