Ex Northern Rock boss pops up at Countrywide's purchasers

Adam Applegarth, the disgraced former chief executive of Northern Rock, has joined Apollo Management – best known for its acquisition of the UK's largest estate agent, Countrywide.

Applegarth's new role at the US private equity firm, which specialises in investing in distressed debt,  is that of senior adviser to its European fund. Apollo is tipped as front-runner to buy up all Northern Rock's bad debt.

Apollo acquired Countrywide at the height of the housing market boom, in May 2007. As new owners, Apollo was then caught out by the savage downturn in the housing market.  Earlier this year, the Countrywide group announced a string of highly complex financial restructurings of its enormous debts.

Apollo has recently raised £630m to make acquisitions in the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, suggesting that it has hired Applegarth for his knowledge of the mortgage markets and his time at Northern Rock.

The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable reacted angrily to the idea that Applegarth could profit from his time at Northern Rock. He told today's Telegraph: "This is a guy who has destroyed his bank, left his shareholders without a penny, lost employees their jobs and left the taxpayer high and dry. Now he's popped up making money by advising someone else on the bad loans he helped create It's outrageous. You couldn't make it up."