UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) is a British financial services holding company with headquarters in the

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

village of

Crossflatts Crossflatts is a ribbon development in Airedale along the old route of the A650 road between Bingley and Keighley, in the Metropolitan Borough of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The opening of the Aire Valley Trunk road in 2004 has see ...

(near

Bradford & Bingley Bradford & Bingley plc was a British bank with headquarters in the West Yorkshire town of Bingley. The bank was formed in December 2000 by demutualisation of the Bradford & Bingley Building Society following a vote of the building society's me ...

's former headquarters in

Bingley Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is sited on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The town had a population of 18,040 at the United Kingdom ...

). It was established in October 2010 as a

bad bank A bad bank is a corporate structure which isolates illiquid and high risk assets (typically non-performing loans) held by a bank or a financial organisation, or perhaps a group of banks or financial organisations. A bank may accumulate a large p ...

to hold the two run-off elements,

(including the Mortgage Express brand) and NRAM plc (previously known as Northern Rock Asset Management), of the two nationalised banks during the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

. Having completed the disposal of the final mortgage books in October 2021, UKAR now has no employees. It remains a government-owned entity, with

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, alon ...

handling any activities that arise as it is wound down.

History

Northern Rock Regent Centre Multi-company signage

On 22 June 2012

Virgin Money Virgin Money may refer to: * Virgin Money (brand), a financial services brand owned by Virgin Group * Virgin Money UK, a British banking and financial services company owned by Nationwide Building Society Nationwide Building Society is a Bri ...

, owners of the Northern Rock bank, acquired the remainder of the NRAM Gosforth site, and the following month UKAR sold £465 million of mortgages from the NRAM portfolio to Virgin. UKAR left their

Gosforth Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, situated north of the Newcastle City Centre, City Centre. It constituted a separate Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban district of Northumberland from 1895 until 1974 before of ...

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

( Northern Rock /

Regent Centre Regent Centre is a large business park and residential complex in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The business park is home to a variety of companies, including banking group Virgin Money UK, Virgin Money whose Head Office is located on t ...

) offices in 2013, and moved those remaining staff to Doxford and Bingley. In 2011 UKAR repaid £2.15 billion to taxpayers and in 2012 paid a further £4 billion. In August 2013, the bank said it has now returned £6.6 billion to the government. It owed £48.7 billion when it was created in October 2010. In 2014 £2.7 billion of the mortgage book was agreed to be sold to Commercial First, a consortium led by

JP Morgan JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is the largest bank in the United States, and the world's largest bank by mar ...

. In 2015 UKFI announced that it would seek expressions of interest for the divestment of mortgage servicing capabilities of the NRAM business as well as the Granite securitisation vehicle. UKFI appointed Moelis & Company as advisers for the divestments. On 13 November 2015, UKAR confirmed the sale of NRAM's Granite mortgage portfolio to

Cerberus Capital Management Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American global alternative investment firm with assets across credit, private equity, and real estate strategies.Leaders Magazine"Providing Economic Opportunity: An Interview with The Honorable Dan Qua ...

for £13 billion. On 31 March 2017 it was announced by

HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury or HMT), and informally referred to as the Treasury, is the Government of the United Kingdom’s economic and finance ministry. The Treasury is responsible for public spending, financial services policy, Tax ...

that the sale of buy-to-let mortgages from the Bradford & Bingley loan book to

Prudential plc Prudential plc is a British-domiciled Multinational corporation, multinational insurance and asset management company headquartered in London and Hong Kong. It was founded in London in May 1848 to provide loans to professional and working peop ...

and funds managed by

The Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. It was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter G. Peterson, Peter Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, Stephen Schwarzman, who h ...

had been agreed for £11.8 billion. At 31 March 2020, UKAR and its subsidiaries had a total mortgage book of £4.7bn, down by £94.7bn since its establishment in 2010.https://www.ukar.co.uk/~/media/Files/U/Ukar-V3/documents/ukar-factsheet-2020.pdf On 26 February 2021, UKAR announced the sale of its final assets from Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock at a price of £5 billion to a consortium of

Citibank Citibank, N.A. ("N. A." stands for "National bank (United States), National Association"; stylized as citibank) is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of Citigroup, a financial services multinational corporation, multinational corporation. Ci ...

and Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP. This transaction consisted of two steps: UKAR sold the remaining loan portfolio to Citibank and Davidson acquired the government’s equity in Bradford & Bingley and NRAM. This concluded the government’s ownership of both institutions. UKAR will have no staff going forward but remains a government-owned entity, with

handling any activities that arise. UKAR's subsidiary UKAR Corporate Services was wound down and dissolved on 17 January 2023.

References

External links

* {{authority control Companies based in the City of Bradford Government-owned companies of the United Kingdom HM Treasury Bingley British companies established in 2010 Financial services companies established in 2010

History

See also

References

External links