 On 9 January 2012, Richard Branson visited the Gosforth site and some branches of Northern Rock around Newcastle, including one with temporary Virgin Money branding.On 22 June 2012, Virgin acquired the remainder of the Gosforth site from Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc, the "bad-bank" which had been split from Northern Rock prior to the sale of the bank to Virgin.On 23 July it was announced that Virgin would also be acquiring £465 million worth of mortgage assets from Northern Rock (Asset Management).