A one way street sign is seen outside a branch of Northern Rock in the City of London, August 3, 2010. The companies born from the split of the old Northern Rock group, the nationalised British bank which was the UK's first major credit crisis victim, reported contrasting fortunes on Tuesday in their interim results. Northern Rock Asset Management -- the so-called "bad bank" bit of the old group -- posted a pretax profit of 349.7 million pounds ($553 million), boosted by lower bad det charges, compared with a loss of 724.2 million a year earlier. REUTERS/Andrew Winning (BRITAIN - Tags: BUSINESS POLITICS)