NORTHERN Rock's decision to offload its Irish subsidiary leaves it with solely UK assets, allowing it to concentrate on priming itself for an impending sale.

Irish Life & Permanent’s retail banking arm, Permanent TSB, is to buy Northern Rock’s Dublin-based savings branch, it was announced yesterday.

Northern Rock plc, (known also as the “good” bank) said it decided to sell the Dublin branch following a review of its retail funding strategy.

The business, Northern Rock Ireland (NRI), accounts for less than 5% of the bank’s total retail deposits of £16.5bn and “no longer meets the commercial objectives of the company”, it said.

Northern Rock Ireland, which has about 17,000 customers, is a telephone and internet-based division operating from an office in Dublin.

Executive chairman Ron Sandler said: “The sale of NRI follows last year’s decision to close the company’s offshore banking operation, Northern Rock (Guernsey).

“The company considers the sale of the branch in Ireland to be a necessary step as we continue to refine our funding strategy and focus on our commercial objectives.”