Monaco's interest in Northern Rock

The largest shareholder of British bank Northern Rock is a Monaco based hedge fund called SRM Global. With shares of just over 9%, SRM is supporting a proposal by Olivant, a rival to Richard Branson's Virgin Money consortium, whose bid has been favourably viewed in the UK. SRM feels that the struggling bank has been undervalued by Virgin, which wants 55% equity in return for paying back 10 million GB pounds to the Bank of England immediately. In contrast, Olivant are asking only 15% equity and a chance to bring in their management team, while returning 11 billion GB pounds to the Bank of England. A third proposal from JC Flowers offers to repay 15 billion GB pounds.