JC Flowers lines up team for Northern Rock

LONDON (Reuters) - Buyout firm JC Flowers confirmed on Thursday it remains in talks with Northern Rock NRK.L over a possible takeover, adding it had secured a team of high-profile executives to lead the bank if a deal is agreed.

JC Flowers said the team it would appoint to lead the battered British bank would be headed by Paul Myners, the influential former chairman of retailer Marks & Spencer (MKS.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) who is currently head of a body charged with implementing the UK government's plans for a national savings scheme.

Myners would become chairman of Northern Rock -- Britain's biggest casualty of the credit crunch -- if a deal is agreed.

Richard Pym, who stepped down as chief executive of mortgage lender Alliance & Leicester (ALLL.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) earlier this year, would be executive deputy chairman, though he would take on the role of chief executive "for the initial period of stabilization."

Flowers said Hugh Scott-Barrett, chief financial officer of Dutch bank ABN AMRO until earlier this year, would take on the same role at Northern Rock if a takeover by Flowers is sealed.

Flowers also added in Thursday's statement that it had named a team of advisors on the deal, including former Northern Rock chief financial officer Bob Bennett, former Abbey National head Peter Birch and Martin Jacomb, ex-chairman of insurer Prudential (PRU.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and a former deputy chairman of Barclays (BARC.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Sources familiar with the matter had said earlier this month that JC Flowers, founded by former Goldman Sachs banker Chris Flowers, was in talks over a rescue bid for Northern Rock.

The sources said then that Flowers had already secured over 15 billion pounds ($30.8 billion) that could be used in a takeover of the stricken UK mortgage bank.

Northern Rock has been engulfed in crisis since the Bank of England stepped in to offer it emergency loans in September after it was hit by a liquidity squeeze in financial markets. The news prompted the first run on the deposits of a major British bank in more than 140 years.