Rock asset management CFO quits amid FSA probe

More controversy at Northern Rock as David Jones, chief financial officer (CFO) at its asset management business NRAM, abruptly left the business with immediate effect in April amid a regulatory investigation into “matters relating to a period before the company entered public ownership”.

The business said that Jones left “to focus on” the investigation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). It appointed its head of treasury, Hugh Graham, as NRAM’s interim CFO, subject to FSA approval. Graham joined Northern Rock as head of treasury in 2009 from Zurich Financial Services, where he has served as head of banking and treasury, head of mergers and acquisitions and group treasurer.

Jones’s departure comes one week after the regulator fined the bank’s former deputy chief executive David Barker and former managing credit director Richard Barclay – from the pre-restructured bank – a combined £644,000. It said that Barker, deputy CEO from January 2004 to March 2008, failed to escalate the information internally that nearly 2,000 loans were omitted from its mortgage arrears book, “agreed a course of action which resulted in the loans not being reported” and “made misleading statements regarding the impaired loans.”

It said that Barclay, who was responsible for the provision of accurate management information concerning loan arrears and property possessions, knew this and failed to ensure management information was accurate.
Jones was one of the few executives not to lose their job when the bank collapsed.

Read about Northern Rock’s recently appointed CFO here