Pension switch to speed N.Rock sale

Pedestrians walk past a branch of the Northern Rock bank in the City of London February 23, 2009.

LONDON (Reuters) - Northern Rock has moved its 350 million pound pension scheme into a so-called "bad bank" to speed the sale of the good part of the nationalised British bank, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

However, the newspaper also quoted Northern Rock chairman Ron Sandler as saying a sale was "highly unlikely" before a national election which must by held by June.

Northern Rock was not available for comment.

Britain's first major casualty of the credit crunch was nationalised in February 2008 after rising wholesale borrowing costs left it reliant on emergency government loans for funding.

It is being split in two as part of a plan to restore its savings and lending operations to financial health, paving the way for their eventual return to private ownership.

Sandler said the taxpayer and government would be "well rewarded" for the public money pumped into it to save it from collapse.

(Reporting by Mark Potter; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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